Freedom and chaos are cousins.
In order to have freedom, a society has to live with an element of chaos. You cannot have one without the other paying a visit from time to time.
And it's here that freedom goes from being a heavily sought-after quality for civilization and turns into something that many people quietly fear.
The thing is, they're not entirely wrong. Freedom can be very frightening because freedom is life without guardrails or training wheels. When you're free, you're free to make mistakes, and you will absolutely make mistakes. Moreover, people are free to do things that they might disapprove of heavily, and that is something that many people can't tolerate. They suddenly become anti-freedom if the freedom that goes away prohibits someone from doing the thing they don't like.
Argentinian President Javier Milei touched on this topic during an interview. He noted that freedom has a frightening quality to it and brought up an interesting point about Moses leading the Jewish people out of Egypt.
"When Moses led the Jewish people out of Egypt, do you think all of them left?" Milei asked the hosts. "It's estimated that only between 25 percent to 35 percent left. Others stayed in Egypt for the 'free fish.' And in exchange for that fish, they lost their freedom."
"I mean, freedom implies taking risks," he added.
Javier Milei: dont fear freedom pic.twitter.com/uFyQrB6y3d
— DutchLibertarian (@LibertarianDuty) January 2, 2024
That's the unspoken dirty truth about freedom and it's one that many people don't want to deal with. Even though many will cheer for freedom on the outside, when you begin asking them about various things that should be allowed in our society, you'll suddenly find many of them saying "Well, of course, that should be illegal."
Certain things should certainly be illegal. No one should have the "freedom" to kill, rape, maim, rob, or otherwise deprive freedom from others. Even the most ardent libertarian isn't an anarchist.
(READ: Even Libertarians Draw a Line)
But freedom does mean things that could be more terrifying to others absolutely should be. Some may find it terrifying that there is no social safety net, yet people should be free from having to support others in such a way. Some people may find it terrifying that there's no state-funded healthcare and yet people feel they should be free from having to provide medical care to people they don't even know.
People may find it terrifying that others own guns, but many people; believe it's the best way to uphold their own freedoms and they're absolutely correct.
What needs to be understood about the scary aspects of freedom is that the dangers presented by it are evident and you can prepare for them in various ways. However, the terrifying aspects of a lack of freedom are usually hidden behind miles of double-speak, false advertising, and damned lies.
With freedom, you can see the pit in front of you. With tyranny, the pit is made to look just like the road on the surface.
It's this kind of mentality that we need to get society to normalize. Yes, freedom means the unknown. Freedom means a bit of chaos. However, freedom is the ability to bend chaos into something beneficial. The unknown is just more undiscovered territory where we're likely to find something useful and good.
The good of freedom outweighs the bad by leaps and bounds.
It's tyranny and an abundance of order that harbors real danger. Giving the government the ability to control any given situation is the permission to control you. You may believe that a law here and a law there won't hurt anyone, but the government doesn't stop at a handful of rules.
The control only grows as does the thirst for more control. Before you know it, you'll wish you had that element of chaos back.
