Respecting other people's liberty will go a long way toward freeing you.
If you truly understand liberty you'll know why.
There's no reason to enslave yourself with the desire to control the rightful behavior of others.
By encouraging you to respect other people's liberty, I offer you the chance to increase your own, which eventually increases my liberty. It's like a snowball rolling downhill. So is the opposite effect of looking to restrict-- to violate-- the liberty of others.
Whenever I see someone who wants the liberty of others to be violated in some way I think they must not value their own liberty much. Maybe they don't understand what they are doing, or think it's OK since "everybody else does it". Because political government is accepted as a given at this point in human history, it's likely both.
If you don't want people begging politicians for laws to restrict what you do, within your rights, why would you ask politicians to violate the rights of others? This doesn't mean you have to like what others do. Respecting their right to do certain things isn't condoning them. You can even speak out to show your disapproval. You are within your rights as long as you aren't using force to stop them.
Think how much time and energy gets wasted trying to run the lives of others; how much of your life you waste trying to dictate how other people live. Why would you sabotage yourself in this way?
"Does this mean people should be allowed to...?" However you fill in the blank, if it doesn't violate anyone else's liberty, it's none of your business if they do or if they don't. If it's none of your business, by extension, it's none of any government's business. Once you get it, your own liberty will expand beyond your wildest dreams. It only costs you the illusion of control over others. It removes your option to punish people for doing things you'd rather they didn't do.
Considering the state of society, you'll probably have to go first. You'll have to stand aside and respect the liberty of others more than they'll respect yours. Before they'll respect yours, or in spite of the fact they never will. You can be a good neighbor even to those who aren't. Respect their liberty to show respect for yourself. Helping others is a way to help yourself.
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