Freedom Versus License

When Liberty Becomes License, Dictatorship is Near. — Will Durant

In the Idiot’s Paradise, aka America, we generally don’t know the difference between Freedom and License. Let me provide a practical distinction that will help clarify my following discussion.

Freedom is the accumulation of rights which allows a person to exercise choices in what to think, say, and do. In contrast, License is lack of due restraint. Freedom’s rights have concomitant responsibilities. License has no rights, per se, and can be taken away at a moment’s notice.

In short, Freedom provides the mechanism for people to exercise rights to do those things that make them most human. License, on the other hand, is what allows people to do whatever they want to do. Knowing people and their proclivities, they have an overwhelming tendency to sink to the lowest common denominator whenever possible.

Rather than studying to become better informed about their world, they slack off and go to the beach; rather than volunteering to help clean up their community, they guzzle beer, smoke marijuana, take opioids, or otherwise get stoned; rather than working for economic, social, and political justice, they — again — go to the beach, get stoned, or otherwise do whatever their urges and impulses tell them to do. Being better citizens? Not a remote possibility for so many…