For a lot of people, the concept of freedom is key to their political ideology as well as their personal philosophy. To be free is the best existence a person can possibly have and it’s something we should all strive for. In the US especially, it’s an important cultural idea. Not only should you live free, but you have an obligation to do so because of how hard people in the past worked for their freedoms.
At the same time, there are some obvious limits on freedom. The quick go-to involves murder. Pretty much everyone agrees that no one should be allowed to kill another person and the reason is pretty obvious. Aside from being a callous and traumatic thing to inflict on another person and their loved ones, it infringed on their freedom. Committing such an act also removes their freedom to live.
“Your right to swing your fist ends where my face begins.” In other words, you can do anything you want, so long as it doesn’t impact other people in a negative way. It’s a pretty good societal rule that’s very similar to (if not a rewording of) the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”
But even those whose cultural and personal identity revolves around freedom may agree to this limitation. So, from the outset, the issue of personal freedoms isn’t one of dispensing solely with things that limit freedom because we’ve already admitted that some limitations are for the best. So, the question becomes, “How much freedom is the right amount?” Or for certain others, “How much can freedom be limited before the people aren’t reasonably free, anymore?”
But to engage in conversation about the level of freedoms one should be allowed is incredibly tedious. It’s very much a case-by-case sort of thing where an agreed limit on one freedom is not an indicator on where another freedom in another category should be. Determining age of consent (which, in the end, is about the freedom of people at certain ages) doesn’t really tell you what your opinion on gun control should be.
And that’s not even the conversation most people are having about it, anyways. Certain infringements on a person’s freedom aren’t taken as seriously as others and whether or not they have positive effects on our society is completely arbitrary to what certain people’s opinion about their freedoms are. You may agree that your freedom to swing your fist ends at my face, but if it’s something less tangible than a fist? Then, all bets are off.
So, what is it, then? If those previously discussed limits on one’s freedoms aren’t tied to the benefit to society, then why limit them at all? After all, it was Benjamin Franklin who said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” And this quote is used to justify an opposition to limitations on personal freedom pretty flagrantly these days. But, what does an old man from hundreds of years ago know about life in the expanded, modern world?
If murder were decriminalized, would my neighbor sneak into my house to kill me out of boredom? Is a crazed serial killer holding off because the killing and dismembering of other people is currently illegal? I don’t think either of those things are true, but I still agree that murder should be illegal.
Maybe personal freedom is more of an excuse. With the complexity of government these days and the sheer multitude of politicians and representatives and non-government employed people with influential opinions on government and policy, it’s not exactly reasonable to expect everyone to have the time or desire to do all the research that’s required to make an informed decision. So, it can be very easy to string together a justification based on freedoms, without any of the context from the scenario it’s being applied to, in order to justify the opinion one held at the outset.
It isn’t about freedom at all. It’s about preference. People don’t oppose stay-at-home orders because it infringes on their freedom. People accept that the government is going to try and tell them what to do, but it is each person’s decision where those government orders are correct and when they should be ignored.
Whether it’s the right thing to do or not isn’t relevant. What do you want to do? Do you want to kill somebody? If the answer is no, it’s pretty easy to argue against the decriminalization of murder. For other, less ambiguous things, it’s a little more complicated, but either way, personal freedom rarely has anything to do with it.
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