My experience, gained from years of talking with many people, suggests that when most people talk about freedom, they mean "the freedom to do as I please, and the freedom to prevent others from doing the same".
That’s one way to express your freedom, but it's not good enough for me.
It’s why I prefer to talk about liberty- freedom tempered with the responsibility to not violate others' equal and identical rights. It's how liberty works, and it's awesome!
The problem some people have is that those rights include things they wouldn't choose to do, and would prefer others didn't choose to do, either. This doesn't change the fact they have a right to do those things. No legislation or rule can change this reality. Your natural human rights aren't subject to majority opinion or political edict, even if you've been trained to believe otherwise.
We are all free to make mistakes; we don't have the right to violate others to prevent them from doing something we believe would be a mistake. Or something we find offensive.
In exercising their liberty, some people will do things which offend you. Many people want you to believe if they've been offended, they've been violated somehow. They haven't. Being offended isn't the same as having your life, liberty, or property violated, even though weak people who want to control others often use this ploy. Don't play along.
If I try to stop others from doing what they have a right to do because I don't like their choices, how can I complain when they do the same to me? I would be a hypocrite of the worst sort. No matter what you do, someone is going to be offended by it. Guaranteed.
The majority of people don’t like this constraint of respecting others' rights. They want to be reassured that they have the imaginary right to control others. Telling them they have no such right angers them. It’s probably why they continue to vote for politicians who encourage them to deny their responsibility and who feed their lust for control.
Be big enough to support liberty. Do as you please, as long as you aren't harming others, and let them have the same freedom. Don't seek to violate their rights just because the system currently allows it. Any system which allows rights to be violated is wrong. Once upon a time, the system allowed slavery, too.
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Thank you for reading.
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