Far be it for me to quote Up With People, the 1970's-era pop hit, for my philosophy, but sometimes one should realize that freedom demands a bit of personal sacrifice.
Freedom is distinguishable from license, according to historic views codified in American political lore, because freedom must be clearly justified as the reification of what is morally and ethically right.
The problem is that society has become so morally ambiguous that freedom sometimes spills over into license. Again and again, society's morality is reduced to the lowest common denominator, and very little seems to restrict the otherwise unrestrained citizen. A free society works best if its citizens are moral and upstanding. Indeed, one might go as far as to say that a free society works only if its best citizens are moral and upstanding, and when the best of its citizens are both respectable and respected. There is a built-in tolerance for amoral or even immoral acts, but above a certain threshold, then there, ahead, lies danger.
Thus it must be remember: Freedom truly isn't free. To quote, as far as I remember, the above-stated play: "We must pay the price; we must sacrifice; to keep our liberty."
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