2025-02-02
Freedom is to have a choice about everything we do, with the proviso that we don't do anything to the detriment of the freedoms of others.
It is in effect freedom of choice. To choose where we go on holiday, to choose for whom we work, to choose our careers (should we be so fortunate as to understand what sort of career we both want and are suited for), to choose by mutual agreement those whom we will marry - or to choose celibacy.
Nobody doubts that of all these freedoms, some choices may actually be mutually incompatible (we in England cannot travel to the Isle of Man by train) but that's life. Some may turn out later to be incompatible (too many marriages do end in divorce) but the principle is that in the end there should be nobody to blame for our successes or failures but ourselves. We are here to make errors and to learn from them.
Of course governments of all hues and proclivities like to control (ie: limit) our freedoms so that we do what they want us to do, and they do that by passing statutes and inventing restrictions "for our safety".
Many of those restrictions are reasonable, as they help to prevent us from impacting on the freedoms of others - few would argue that anybody who hasn't learned the rules of the road and how to drive safely should be allowed to get behind the wheel of a double-decker bus.
Many restrictions may seem designed to collect forfeits from the unwary (unduly low speed limits, and parking charges are a source of contention, to name but two).
Taxes are a primary restriction - you don't get to have any practical say on how the government spends this (quite large) part of your purchasing power on your behalf.
And now the government wants to extend their opportunity to control the other part of your purchasing power, that part that you do still get to spend or save according to your whim and fancy. They don't put it like that of course, but the direction of travel is clear - they will want to very substantially limit your choices to those of which they (the UN-WEF) approve. Who knows where that will end?
Give them an inch and they will take a mile.
Which means that we have to learn from their mistakes, whilst they do not. That is not a recipe for progress.
