Freedom will never mean the right to take freedom away from others. That really is the only restriction. Though it really isn’t a restriction. So much as it is a crucial ingredient that being free can not be achieved without. In a free society, what can be rightfully disallowed, except for all those actions that prevent the freedoms of other society members. Free speech is one thing, but if the intent is to diminish or even exclude the voice of another, it is in fact diminishing the free speech of the speaker. You can target, toss, aim your intentions at harming one particular grouping of citizens, but there is no argument that your impositions should not boomerang back around and harm your own freedoms as well. There isn’t. You want to pay your way stealing from your neighbors, what is your argument that anyone in the world shouldn’t steal from you? No matter the words you use, it doesn’t exist. Murder. Violence. These are self nullifying actions. Even if there were no justice system, no state of incarceration, no intention of governmental vengeance. Do we think our communities would allow one member to, at whim, end the life of another member? The Justice system was not invented to create justice. But fear. Consequence. And revenge.

We don’t need a justice system, any more than any one of us needs another head attached to our own body. For the human being in and of itself is a system of justice.

We need to educate all people that restricting the rights and freedoms of any person, regardless of race, gender, identity, any other qualifier that does not actually negate or even diminish someone’s humanity, or rights of citizenship, is an act of war. Acts of war do not always take place within the context war. Often, they come before. And this discrimination is a war act, even if one hundred years happen between the action and the full fallout. It is possible to be prejudiced, but still respect the object of your prejudice’s autonomy. In fact, this respect will affect you quite fruitfully. For you see, that is the one saving grace of capitalism. Of any economy. Or ecosystem. We can argue all day the reasons you do not like rattlesnakes, but any adventurer worth their salt knows there would be seriously detrimental consequences for all of us if we restricted, or removed them entirely from an environment.

My point is not to teach the dull and redundant wrongness of thinking people who are different from you are bad, or not worthy of the same rights as you. I am arguing that diminishing the rights of people you don’t like hurts the economy, and has all kinds of negative effects even for the practitioners of hate. Of racism. And judgement. Dressed up justice.

Racism is detrimental to the racist and the race. It really is, for lack of a better word in any regard, a stupid ethos. I wonder why southerners were nervous, hesitant to trust, and insulatory, leading up to the Civil War. Could it be because their economy was built on the backs of human beings who had every right and justification for absolutely hating the humans they were working, cooking, making beds, laboring for in every form imaginable. Slavery was stupid. It made slave owners finicky, quick to violent reaction, and prone to isolationism, which led, in relatively short order, to the most costly war that has ever taken place on American soil.

Denying the rights of same sex couples, legitimizing slander and distrust against transgender people, decrying immigrants as criminals, dismissing women as too emotional or incapable of political leadership. Denying anyone rights of participation in the system that organizes their access to the basic necessities of survival and sustained life. Is dumb.

The conversations we have around these groups of people have changed over the past few decades, but not because we’ve grown enlightened, or more open minded, or softened. But because inclusive policies, attitudes and systems, lead to more commerce, stronger, diversified economies, and a higher educated, more affluent and experienced population.

Unarguably.
We are better people.
When we are better to people.

This idea that freedom is something our governments grant for us, let’s just say, history tells a different story. Justice is not found in finally providing full rights to everyone who once had them denied. It is found in asking who has benefited from lying that this expensive system could ever equal out and make freedom accessible for all of us. Studying what the reality of justice and being free has meant for them, and measuring it against the people who have the very least amount of social, fiscal and opportunistic freedoms. What do those people who benefited have in common, and what about the people who haven’t.

Asking the humans who built the system this way to change it is ludicrous. Asinine. If any politician came out publicly and said rattlesnakes aren’t all bad, and also deserve a right to live in the woods, would risk their bid for reelection, simply based on the lack of popularity of rattlesnakes. Representation in place of authentic democracy, is a stupid, biased, and verifiably unsuccessful method. People who hate snakes will be overrun by rats. People who think the color of their skin nullifies their sins are in for a rude awakening on that inevitable day when they are no longer in any way awake.

Do we want to build a functional society that provides freedom for all people in it?

If we do, it is actually much easier than what we are already trying.

Freedom. Free access to the resources required to sustain life. Free. Absent of cost, required payment, or taxation.

They are very simple and inexpensive, words like justice and freedom. The systems that truly protect them will be simple too. And if they aren’t, that is not on accident. It never is.
But fear is a powerful drug.

If I had never been in the woods, I too might believe it was full of snakes.
If I had never been to the city, I might not understand why it is full with rats.

Freedom has nothing to do with good and bad.

It is easier than that.

Freedom is a reference to cost.
And right now, sustaining human life, costs a lot.
It is an industry.
It will never make us for free.

Government is not a good source for finding justice.
Because if it ever really attempted true justice,
the government would be indicted long before the rest of us.