That’s apropos because the idea of “safety” is something I think oversaturates our society to the point where we’re willing to embrace the negative side effects of safety in order to feel as if they aren’t coming to harm. The truth about safety is that, like all other things, it has to be enjoyed in moderation. Too much of it, and what you get is stagnation and fear.

What many people who enjoy freedom are afraid to admit is the nature of freedom isn’t necessarily safe. As I’ve said many times before, freedom and chaos are cousins. You can’t have liberty without living with an element of sudden danger. You can mitigate the danger posed to yourself and your family by using your liberties to become an element of danger yourself, thus creating a peaceful society.

This doesn’t appeal to many people who think that safety should be guaranteed at all times, and in ways that won’t make them deal with the danger themselves. Few freedom lovers want to admit that a truly free society can be dangerous, and instead focus on various other aspects of liberty in order to sell it better.

That truth is always lurking in the background. But this doesn’t mean a less free society is safer.

A society made safe by an overarching authority, like many people today advocate, is effectively asking for the sudden danger of a free society to be replaced by the furtive danger of a hierarchical one. An authoritarian government might take away anything that could be used as a weapon such as guns and knives, making it harder for the violent and sadistic criminals of society to commit their crimes.

However, the danger now lies in many other corners of society. An overarching government can harshly punish you for any number of things–from committing a real crime to inconveniencing one of its leaders. You could become sick and the government would deem you unfit to waste resources to heal you. You could suffer the effects of the corruption of those at the top, losing your livelihood and dignity at the drop of a hat.

With this government in control of your “safety,” the government itself becomes unsafe, as it could turn against you at any moment, for any reason, and at any time. Thus the desire for someone to oversee your safety made you unsafe, just in a way that crept on you slowly.

It’s my opinion that safety was never supposed to be the ultimate goal of any civilization. Starting from the very beginning of one’s life, too much safety can be detrimental to growth. The kid kept away from anything dangerous becomes overdependent, fearful, and ignorant. Even if we were to think of it abstractly, think of a thing kept in safety. It sits in the dark behind locked doors, never seeing the light of day and truly interacting with the world.

But my ultimate thoughts on safety come from Christ himself. Looking at the things Jesus did, you’ll notice that he rarely focused too much on being safe. He was, after all, a disruptor. He would say and do things that would challenge the status quo and upset many powerful people. He would send his apostles to preach the good word in places where doing so was dangerous, and each of them found death or imprisonment.

If safety was truly important, then Jesus never would have been as bold as he was and we wouldn’t have His guidance or His sacrifice. “Safety first” would have been the motto that stopped Christianity and is likely the concept that stops any number of Christians from acting today.

A little safety is good. It stops you from making foolish mistakes that could have been avoided, stops your toddler from getting into things that could harm him, and provides a sense of calm that you can use to ease your mind.

But too much of it is clearly dangerous in so many ways.