People are often their own worst enemies. They listen to those they should ignore or laugh at while they ignore (or laugh at) those they should listen to. It's always been the same.
Harriet Tubman, the 19th Century abolitionist, is quoted as saying, "I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed more if only they knew they were slaves."
It's the libertarian's dilemma. People don't like to notice their chains even when that's about all it would take to break them. It's too painful to admit they aren't as free as they should be, so they don't.
No one can free you; it's up to you to free yourself. If someone takes the chains off of you, unless you make up your mind to be free you'll help put the chains back on the first time you get a little scared or hungry.
You'll enslave yourself because you fear immigrants you imagine taking jobs you don't have and don't want.
You'll enslave yourself to keep a neighbor from doing things they want to do but you don't want them to do. Even when they don't violate you in any way, you'll violate yourself just to control them.
If it makes you angry to be told you aren't nearly as free as you imagine; that your liberty is systematically violated every minute of your life by those who tell you how free you are, here's another quote you need to hear; this one from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
Your body is yours; no one has a higher claim to it. If you can be prohibited from ingesting something-- whether it's sugar, Cannabis, or bacon-- you aren't free. If you can be forced to act against your interests when doing what you want wouldn't violate anyone, you aren't free.
The property you've gotten through mutually consensual arrangements with others is yours. If anyone else can claim your property-- through such government actions as taxation, licenses, eminent domain, or even property codes-- you aren't free.
If you won't work to be free-- to throw off your chains-- when it would be relatively safe and easy, what will you do when it becomes hard? Will you resign your children's children to an intrusive, controlling police state? If you go along to get along today, you've already answered the question. You've chosen chains over scary liberty.
Added: Here's the headline this same column was given in the print edition...
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