Freedom Lessons

Why Milton Friedman still matters:

The critical point here, and one that people don’t grasp, is that “allowed” freedom is not freedom at all; it is, actually, slavery. “But I have the freedom to go to bed with whoever I want to, to choose my gender. The Left allows me that…” And that last statement is the key. The Leftist government ALLOWS it. That’s not freedom. What they allow, they can just as easily disallow. And that’s slavery, control, not freedom. There were slave holders in the past who “allowed” their slaves to travel; passes were given and the slave was “free” to go to another destination to, perhaps, visit his family or loved ones. But think: is that true “freedom”? Of course it isn’t. The slave was only “allowed” to go visit his family or whatever. He wasn’t told he HAD to do it, he was just granted the “freedom” to do it—a “freedom” “granted” by his owner. A “freedom” granted is a “freedom” that can be taken away. Dependence on the government is also not true freedom. Those who live on government welfare today are not truly “free.” They are reliant upon the government; they are, in effect, “slaves” of the government because, just like with the traveling slave in the paragraph above, what is given can be taken away.

George Carlin understood this, too: