Perhaps someone should give Giuliani a dictionary

2007-08-11T21:27:50Z

In 1994 then mayor Rudy Giuliani gave a speech on crime which included this excerpt (full text available here:

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

[ Interruption by someone in the audience. ]

You have free speech so I can be heard.

Now, don't get me wrong, freedom is a very difficult thing to define. The entry at dictionary.com takes 17 different tries at it. None of these tries, however, mention anything about "ceding to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

Freedom:
1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.
2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. the power to determine action without restraint.
4. political or national independence.
5. personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom.
6. exemption from the presence of anything specified (usually fol. by from): freedom from fear.
7. the absence of or release from ties, obligations, etc.
8. ease or facility of movement or action: to enjoy the freedom of living in the country.
9. frankness of manner or speech.
10. general exemption or immunity: freedom from taxation.
11. the absence of ceremony or reserve.
12. a liberty taken.
13. a particular immunity or privilege enjoyed, as by a city or corporation: freedom to levy taxes.
14. civil liberty, as opposed to subjection to an arbitrary or despotic government.
15. the right to enjoy all the privileges or special rights of citizenship, membership, etc., in a community or the like.
16. the right to frequent, enjoy, or use at will: to have the freedom of a friend's library.
17. Philosophy. the power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-determination.

Link courtesy of allyscully

winterthunder @ 2007-08-04T19:53:00

2007-08-05T03:00:00Z

Possible LJ refugee. Many thanks to zelda for the account!

Insights of a Chicken

Perhaps someone should give Giuliani a dictionary

winterthunder @ 2007-08-04T19:53:00