Freedom

In our culture, we often prattle on and onn about 'freedom' and we have no real idea what we talk about. Freedom comes with many definitions.
There is freedom to, the idea that you can do exactly what you want. There is a validity to this. If you wish to write, or become a dishwasher, or walk around the Country, no one can it should stop you. But, such freedom has a dark side and this is the realm of the many monsters that are loose in the World, There are those who rape women and those who rape the financial world and those who rape the Earth itself. Are they free to do so? In a sense, yes. Nothing can really be done to stop them from trying. Of course, the rest of us can try to stop them from continuing to do so. Sometimes, we do stop them, but we should get better at that.
Then, we have freedom from. This can take 2 forms. The first, physical, can be boiled down to freedom from want, the idea being that no one should go hungry or homeless. This is a profoundly noble idea and, while this will very likely never be fully achieved, it is a goal we must never lose sight of.
Then, there is the freedom from compulsions. If you are driven to do something and you cannot control these drives, you are not free. For example, if you cannot avoid chocolate ice cream and you are 80 pounds over weight and no that is killing you, you are trapped by your compulsions. You are not free. This is true of people with addictions to drugs, food, alcohol, sex work sports, money or anything that rules your life.  Now, not all of these compulsions are awful. If you are addicted to sex and confine your activity to relations with your spouse, that is not a great problem, although you will likely go through your days really, really tired. On the other hand, an addiction to amphetamines will kill you, but not before you go stark, raving mad. All of our addictions are to things that are pleasurable and, in and of themselves, not necessarily bad. It is the trap that the person finds themselves , their lack of freedom from the compulsions that is the problem.
Our Creator has been gracious in giving us a World  where we have great freedom and rarely does anything to curtail or freedoms, with the exception of the Natural laws of the physical World. But, we are not guaranteed freedom from consequence. Anything that takes away your freedom from is too be dealt with cautuosly or not at all.
The freedom to do as we please is fine withing limits. Those limits kick in at the point we start interfering with the freedom of others. The exceptio of course comes when we take away the rights of those who engage in blatant and damaging criminal activitie, ie those who step on the freedom of others. Remember, there are consequences.
But, far more important are the freedoms from. No one should be denied the necessities of life. That is to be assumed. The freedom from our various compulsions is where our true freedom lies and, when we deal with these issues, we find ourselves free of so many other troubles. Free at last. Those are fine words.