Defining Freedom In Today's Environment

I found the following definition within another posting and it is possible I have taken it out of context but taken to it's simplest level it basically is saying that your freedoms are those that the state gives you.

The court accepted the sincerity of Mr. Reynolds’s religious convictions and assumed the authority of the free exercise clause, but asked, what exactly “is the religious freedom which has been guaranteed?”

The answer it gave (with help from James Madison and Thomas Jefferson) was that the freedom being guaranteed was the freedom to believe or think something, not the freedom to do something: “Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief, they may with practices.” You can believe or say anything you like – including that God wants you to have plural wives – but you can’t act on it. That is to say, freedom stops at the brain and the mouth.

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