Freedom Requires Restriction

DON’T MESS WITH MY FREEDOM!

I don’t get to do all that much, but I love to travel and I love excitement.  So, I’m enamored with Atlanta’s Spaghetti Junction.  With my recent forays into hang gliding and glider lessons.  And flying in general.  These things are edgy.  They give me a sense of freedom, but they are DANGE-ER-OUS!

I’m thinking about freedom this morning.  Not only the relative freedoms we enjoy in America, but freedom in general.  It is, after all, a dangerous thing.  People being allowed to behave any way they choose.  That’s freedom, right?  I’m free to do anything I choose…I’m free to enjoy exercising my freedom…and enjoy it to the fullest.  After all, I only go around once.  No rules!  No restrictions!

I don’t want restriction.  I don’t want anybody else telling me what to do.  I don’t want any accountability.  I don’t want anyone invading my space.  I don’t care about anybody else’s standards or expectations.  So…

But what if Spaghetti Junction was all flat streets and highways without any retaining walls and no markings?

What if airports had no rules?  What if there were no international rules that kept other airplanes from getting too close to my airplane?  Or to my building?

What if trains had no tracks, or no rules about the speed they ran on the rails…around the curves?

What if drivers were given the freedom to drive their automobiles on any side of a busy highway they wanted to…at any speed they wanted to…engaging in any concurrent activity they wanted to?

What if elevator companies were allowed to install elevators with no restrictive emergency brakes?  Or not required to set weight limits?

What if builders were allowed to use substandard materials to build homes for unsuspecting buyers?  What if automobile manufacturers were allowed to build vehicles with parts that blew up after the ignition was turned on a few hundred times?

What if no one was ever held accountable for their actions?  What if people were allowed to destroy other people with words without truth?’

What if people were allowed to enjoy privilege that infringed on the privileges of others?

What if government was by and for the government?  What if those who made laws exempted themselves from those same laws?  What if a difference of legal opinion was not settled based on law, but on opinion…which was then used as the basis for another opinion…and another…ad nauseum?

What if it were allowed for some people to be considered more important than other people?  Doctors than sharecroppers?  Legislators than voters?  Younger than older?  Unborn living than young children?  Infirm than healthy?

What if I could kill anyone I didn’t like?  Or who interfered with my lifestyle?  What if I was free to take what belongs to another person?

I could go on, but here are six self-evident axioms.

1. Absolute freedom results in chaos compared to a homeostatic coexistence which results in practical freedom.
2. Chaos always results in freedom being restricted by force.
3. Chaos is diminished by mutually accepted restrictions on individual freedoms of the weaker by the stronger.
4. Mutually accepted restrictions are a matter of trust.
5. Without trust, there is no practical freedom.
6. The greater the trust, the greater the degree of freedom.

What are your thoughts?  Please share this post with your friends, family and associates.