If you could choose between peace or freedom, which would you choose?

1. 67

   Zaiden Jaceposted 11 years ago

   If you could choose between peace or freedom, which would you choose?
   
   Please explain your answer. I'm always curious to see what people think.
   
   

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2. 75

   SidKempposted 11 years ago

   I don't believe that one can make that choice. Peace is freedom. Violence is one of the things we seek to be free of.
   
   Hitler sought freedom: Freedom for Germany from internal weakness and external oppression. He failed. He created death and imprisonment for many, and, ultimately for himself as well.
   
   Gandhi sought freedom: Freedom for India from internal weakness and external oppression. He moved his country a long way towards success. He did this by recognizing that Peace is more powerful that violence or hatred. Had Gandhi not done what he did, bloody civil war would have killed millions in India. Look also at Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
   
   Gandhi praised those who sought justice through violence, but called them to an even higher calling. He said that cowardice - not facing oppression, injustice, and lack of freedom, was worst. Violence was better. But better than either of those was non-violence, which is also peaceful Divine love.
   
   Freedom established with violence is transitory. The American West was freed wit the gun; now look at all the problems the US has with gun violence.
   
   Freedom created through peaceful means is everlasting and available to us all. Let us counter injustice, imprisonment, violence, war, oppression, illness, and all the world's problems with peace in our hearts. This can be called the Way of the Peaceful Warrior.

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   1. 73

      Mazzy Boleroposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I agree with you that Gandhi sought freedom, but I can't see that Hitler did.  I can see your point, though, that  freedom is more likely to thrive if it does not involve taking vital freedoms from others.

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   2. 75

      SidKempposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm no fan of Hitler, but if we do not understand history, we are doomed to repeat it. If we don't see how Nazi propaganda appealed to those who desired freedom & purity, we can be seduced by others using the same tactics, like the Tea Party.

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3. 69

   jabelufirozposted 11 years ago

   Freedom, without question.
   
   During Southern slavery, for example, a majority of slaves were actually treated quite well. They worked hard, but they also were taken well care of, enough to have children. During the Civil War, many of them supported and faught for the South. The image of the tortured, brutalized slave did exist, but it was actually a small percentage of all owners. Slaves were considered just like domesticated animals are today. Most people take wonderful care of their pets, cows, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, pigs, etc. Even those intended for slaughter are still cared for, and any illness among them strikes panic in their owners. Slave owners took care of their slaves as well, because it wasn't cheap to buy them and they weren't any good if they couldn't do work, which required them to be healthy.
   
   Still, who would want that kind of "peace"?
   
   Freedom is always the better option. TRUE freedom, where people are able to determine their own destinies without interference or protection by others, allows everyone to make their own success or failure through self-detemination.
   
   Going back to the slavery example, many slaves who were freed actually killed themselves, because they had never experienced the concept of self-determination. If was frightening to realize that, if you could not provide for yourself, no one was going to come and feed you or house you. And many discovered that their was even more bigotry awaiting them in the north.
   
   Peace is easy. But it almost ALWAYS involves some form of slavery or control.
   
   Freedom -- which American citizens do not have, BTW -- is very difficult and requires extreme care to keep alive.
   
   American freedom was permanently taken away during the Great Depression.

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4. 73

   Mazzy Boleroposted 11 years ago

   Freedom every time.  This is a moot question these days.  In Europe we are now being forcibly stirred into some characterless casserole, sacrificing our sovereignity, our rights, our customs, our values, our history, our identity.  Faceless power structures take the decisions behind closed doors.  After WWII a class of politicians imagined that Europe would avoid war if it was all a single entity and set about trying to make it into one.  It abandoned not only the lessons of history but common sense. It seems to me that If you give up your own power to control your own destiny, the consequence is simply to be controlled by others.  Instead of a country like Germany, France or Russia trying to take control, we have beaurocracies, commissions and bullying banks and no way to fight.  We have the peace of the puppet.  I'd fight for freedom.

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5. 69

   LandmarkWealthposted 11 years ago

   Freedom isn't free.  In this world it must be fought for all too often and our forefathers bleed to provide us a document that gives us many such protections.  So have many others since then.  While freedom must be fought for very often, a society that is not largely free is never peaceful.  My uncle was smuggled out of Czechoslovakia after the communist took over.  Not because they were at war at the time.  But because life without your liberty is not a life.worth living.

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