None of us are born into freedom, for we are dependent primarily upon our parents for our good guidance, in order for us then to ultimately develop into mature and healthy adults. This means that our parents as well as other authority figures are basically in charge of us in the sense of helping us to make good decisions, and when appropriate, our parents make those decisions for us, because they are in the prime position to know what is best for us. So too, other authority figures, such as teachers and mentors, have the right to help guide us, because as children we need that guidance to thereby keep us focused on the pathway that will best bring us success.
Eventually, though, all of us move from childhood into adulthood and therefore there comes that time when we no longer are dependent or even necessarily interested in what our elders desire or think that we should do, for we are now independent free-thinking individuals, capable of making our own decisions, good or bad, right or wrong, and thus have then the responsibility to fully own up to those very decisions so made. This doesn’t signify that we have to or need to turn our back upon our parents, our teachers, or the others that we esteem, but rather that we have the independent choice to do so, though in truth, we are often far better off remaining in harmony with those that have our best interests, in mind.
All of the above signifies that in a nation that prides itself on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that we are fairly entitled to those very things -- of which this thus signifies that rather than our governance dictating to us, what we can or cannot do, or questioning us as to what we are or are not doing, or monitoring our movements online or in-person, that such governance as that, is governance that has taken a significantly wrong turn, for to be at liberty, means to be at liberty to think the thoughts that we so desire to think and to do the things that we so desire to do, subject only to reasonable legislative laws written for the benefit of society, at large.
In other words, to live in a society in which, as a school child, we are required to raise our hand, so as to have permission to speak, is not a free society, but rather represents a controlling society, which by definition, then, is not free. All those who believe that a safe and secure society, necessitates that all our public movements need and should be monitored, and all that we say and do through social media or in our interactions, should be observed for the safety and security of this nation, have surely got it wrong, for those that truly desire to be free and at liberty must themselves be sovereign individuals and to the degree that they are not, then they remain no more than subjects to that governance, of which that governance determines then what is best for that individual to do, and therefore what is or is not permitted, which is anathema to individual freedom.