Are We Really Free?

During the semester we been talking a lot about liberty. Liberty to do what you want with your person and your property as long as it does not cause harm towards others. In the United States it is very easy to assume that we have the liberty to do what we want with our property and our person as long as it does not cause harm towards others. I used to believe that until I realized that there our laws out there that prevents me from doing certain things with my private property such as zoning laws, or laws that prevent me from selling a kidney.

I once thought of the United States as being free and to a certain extent it is free, but because of laws that restrict me from doing certain things or laws that enable the government to do certain things to me such as the NSA potentially spying I feel like my very own liberty has been violated. Laws have even been passed to force me to purchase health insurance. The government is using its force to violate the liberty of citizens.

It is really easy to call the U.S. a free country and to extent it still is, but when there are laws in place that would do no harm to others or their private property if the law were to be violated. These laws tell us what we can and cannot do with our private property, they tell us what we cannot do with our bodies, and they tell us were we can and cannot live. We still own our private property, but sometimes it really makes me think if we really do or if the government is just "leasing" it out to us.

I am not saying that the U.S. is not a free country because to an extent it is. All I wanted to say is that even though the U.S. is a free country the government has the power to violate our liberties. They violate our liberty of private property, and they violate the liberty that we have of ourselves. Sure we are free to prosper in the economy, but you better follow the rules that the government has in place or you might not be "free" for very much longer.