Earlier this morning (as I’m writing this, obviously), I was asked if I knew what freedom was because my bio on the site where this question was posed to me declares me to be a “guy just looking for freedom.” At first, I was mildly bemused by the question, even more so because it was asked in a private message and not publicly. I was more than happy to answer succinctly, in essence: “To live a life free from the interference of others so long as I too am not infringing on others’ ability to do so.” Apparently, according to the person who answered, this isn’t possible and then was asked if I would like to discuss things further. I declined, citing that I wasn’t open to discussion with someone on a subject who had already decided my position wasn’t tenable. Such a person is close-minded to the possibility of obtaining such freedom, and to be fair I am equally closed-minded to the opposite possibility of not being able to get such freedom.
In the past, I’ve been exposed to the pseudo-philosophers who claim we can never be truly free and they cite stupid bullshit like how we aren’t free from needing air, food, and water, how we as a species need to mate to propagate so we aren’t free from that, nor are we free from death. I was apparently dealing with an intellectual powerhouse so I let that conversation go. After all, how can I come back from that? By all common measurements, I am at or below average intelligence and my educational achievements aren’t much to brag about. However, I am certain that those who believe it is impossible to be able to mind one’s own business are not people who will be convinced that it is, in fact, possible to go about life, living in society, and never stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong.
Now obviously there are times, places, and circumstances where nosing in is perfectly acceptable. Those times should be - in all reality - rare. For in those circumstances you have to make sure you have all available information on the situation. Now, I don’t know about you, but I am not omnipotent. I can’t just come up on a situation and say, “Wow, this is what it appears to be, let me intervene.” Unfortunately, too many people do take situations at face value because they believe they have an inherent right to intervene regardless of the full facts of the situation. There are times when a snap decision to intervene is warranted, obviously, but again it should be rare.
If you are of such poor self-discipline as to not be able to mind your own business, I feel that says more about you than you realize.
All that being said, I guess I haven’t really addressed the title topic, “What is freedom?”
Freedom is building whatever you want on your land, or not building at all.
Freedom is ingesting what you want, or not ingesting anything at all.
Freedom is being able to make choices for yourself at all times, so long as those choices don’t involve the use of force against others except in times of self-defense or defense of others. I think that the last part trips people up. What does it mean to say “defense of others”? Does it mean pre-emptively preventing them from making what you deem to be bad choices? Or is it simply seeing a situation unfold in which one person is clearly the aggressor and the other is the recipient of that aggression? I feel like, unless you’ve seen the entire context of the event, it can be hard to determine who is in the right and who is in the wrong.
If it’s hard to determine, then why do so many try to interpose themselves in situations they had no business interposing themselves in? Is it really impossible to exercise the self-discipline needed to take a studied and cautious view of a situation before acting? Have we all become emotional children and are only able to respond in the most base of ways? Or is this part of the larger trend (one which I feel is dangerous and needs to reverse course forthwith) of ‘social justice’ where the only proper way to respond is emotionally in the heat of the moment without actually assessing what’s going on, what the facts actually are, and boiling things down to a few 30 second, emotionally charged blurbs? Because if that’s the case, then maybe the person was right, maybe we aren’t able to mind our own business. The real travesty is in that lack of self-discipline, and not with the perceived cause de jour.
My suggestion for all of you out there: take a deep breath, step back, sit down, and mind your own business. Let’s take care of our own lives before we interfere in the lives of others uninvited.
I enjoyed your piece, and fully agree. As long as one's liberties stops where another's begins, and one's actions harms no one else or no one else's property, everyone should be free to do, and think as they wish free from molestation from the government.