[MRM]

OK, if America is not a free country, what do you want to do that you can't? I'm just trying to understand. Sure, I can't do everything I want, but I can say anything I want (other than shouting fire in a crowded theater) I can live where I want, travel where I want to, write as obnoxiously as Wayne will let me on my favorite web site. Any product we can imagine is available to us in any stores that cater to our every whim. Sure, we don't have perfect freedom if by that you mean the ability to do anything you want whenever you want to do it, but that is anarchy. Not a bad political system, but completely unworkable for building a civilization that supports a standard of living. Hence the social compact that has evolved in America. Speeding is an issue of individual freedom. But driving at unregulated speeds causes accidents that shifts the cost of speeding from the speeder to the rest of society. Not wearing seat belts is an individual choice. But not wearing seat belts results in more injuries and health care expense that is borne by the rest of society. Drinking and driving is a right endowed on us by our Creator. But drunks kills themselves and other innocent people at high enough rates to increase all of our auto insurance premiums and it infringes on my inalienable right to use the public roads without getting run into by a drunk. Nothing can be a more personal decision than to dump used motor oil in your back yard. After all, you own the property, right? But when that oil gets into the drinking water supply it causes cancer for years until the rest of society spends millions to clean it up.

To the extent that someones' stupid decisions shift costs from them to someone else, society has the right to restrict the ability to make that stupid decision. That's not a restriction on individual freedom, that's protecting the rights of individuals. We all have a say in which laws are adopted to restrict which particular stupid activities. That is freedom and that is what we have.