Op-Ed: Your Freedom Is Not More Important Than My Fear Of Your Freedom

Babylon Bee🐝

“Freedom!” It’s a common cry of the far-right and other ignorant troglodytes. They think it trumps everything as if saying, “You’re taking away my freedom!” is the end to any argument. 

But we live in a society. That means we have to think about each other and that your freedom isn’t the most important thing of all. And one thing your freedom does not trump is how I’m deathly afraid of your freedom.

Yes, all your freedoms are scaring me and causing me to have to cower inside the bathroom in my apartment. Your freedom to have firearms. Your freedom to operate motor vehicles (especially really loud ones). Your freedom to do whatever you want during a pandemic when I’m really sure you’re going to give me the COVID. Should I be constantly terrorized by the thought of people out there being free? No, that’s oppression, and the government needs to put a stop to it.

And don’t even get me started on the freedom of speech. Online is now a scary, scary place because I am so afraid that people are out there able to say any lie they want... or things that aren’t exactly lies but are misleading... or things that aren’t misleading but just don’t need to be said because it’s mean. Should you be able to say whatever you want when it’s causing severe psychological harm to me because I hate you so much and don’t like what you’re saying? Of course not.

Now, I am all for freedom, but fun freedoms like being whatever gender you want—or swearing at Ted Cruz on Twitter. But when freedom stops being fun—when it scares me—that’s when it stops being free. Because your freedom has imprisoned us by how scared we are that you can just do whatever you want. That’s why we need government agents dressed in black to do something to you in the middle of the night so the rest of us can sleep better.