A label locks me into a definition that people use to control me. A vision graces me with an idea that serves to release me.

If I don’t passionately desire freedom for all of my fellowmen, it’s likely that I haven’t been sufficiently freed from my selfishness so that I might see their captivity.

Liberty isn’t free, despite the fact that we ‘freely’ disregard that fact.

If you somehow believe that you can free yourself from yourself, you will spend the rest of your life decorating the prison cell that you’ve been living in all of your life.

A true patriot is the one who will boldly stand against the abuse of liberty when the culture around them is using those liberties to stand for the lesser things that are certain to destroy those liberties as well as the patriot who is standing for them.

Ethics, morals and values keep freedom from devolving into license. For license is greed unleashed. And we would be quite wise to remember that greed unleashed is certain to turn and kill the thing that unleashed it.

When the exercise of my freedom results in my destruction or the destruction of those around me, what I’ve exercised is the freedom to be selfish. And if such an exercise of freedom leads to my destruction, I should be quick to realize the frightening similarities between selfishness and stupidity.

Freedom is not permission to be stupid, for the exercise of ‘stupid’ as a ‘right’ is certain to destroy the very freedom that stupidly used to be stupid. And that’s about as stupid as stupid gets.

At the point that I have confused ‘rights’ with ‘privileges,’ I will have lost both.