Freedom vs. License

 What in the world was I on about yesterday?

I'd bet you remember freedom.

I'd bet our grandparents and their grandparents would remember more.

Or is it something you don't even perceive until it's damaged,

or gone?

So what is different?  What have we lost?  

In a sense, I say, we have lost our high lonesome authority over our own lives, if we allow it.  Even back in the storied 60s, it certainly was not absolute.  

In our youth, some earlier, some later, if you had an accident and were injured, it was your deal.  You had the authority to break your own head.

I couldn't believe it when seat belts became legally required.  It felt intrusive, and it was intrusive!

This goes for those regrettable looking helmets also!  (Helmets should be available for anyone who wants one!)

A related subject is privacy.  Nobody knows what that is now'days.  They think it means physical doors.  But it's another authority issue.  Who is in charge of your life?

Traditionally freedom has been the ability to do what is right under your own authority.  I understand license to be self-indulgence in moral matters to a destructive degree.  

I think it goes back to where the rules are that you live with.  Are they inside your own skin, or are they external and applied to your life by some other authority?

It seems like there is an odd sort of inversion going on now.  Many of the youth are in mental cages, but are allowed great license in moral matters. It looks as if the goal is to create human cattle.  

Control is all that it is.