So the government decided it isn't going to kick my ass for saying bad stuff about it, and that makes me free? So I guess if Hitler had allowed people to question the Holocaust without fear of reprisal, that would have made Nazi Germany free? If Stalin had allowed the people in the gulags freedom of religion, that would have made the USSR free? If the blacks in apartheid-era South Africa were able to have the freedom to a speedy trial, that would have made them free?

Just because I can get away with smoking pot in my own home doesn't mean our government isn't violating people's freedom with its drug laws. That's like saying that China is free despite its restrictions on freedom of speech, because you can get away with talking shit about the Chinese government in private if nobody rats you out.

Sorry, but the U.S. Constitution is no guarantee of freedom. Just remember, the Constitution was able to legally co-exist with the institution of chattel slavery for nearly a century. All governments infringe upon freedom. That's what it means to govern: to exercise authority over others, to write the rules, and to impose your will upon those who disagree with the rules you've written. The Bill of Rights is just a list of ten specific ways the government could restrict our freedom, but has decided it won't. Unless it can get away with it of course, which it often does.

What exactly do you mean by freedom? Because in my book, freedom doesn't mean not being punished for a specific list of ten things. Freedom is the ability to do whatever I want and live my life however I want, so long as I don't harm, exploit, or restrict the liberty of anyone else. In prohibiting harmless activities the government is restricting people's freedom, and to assert otherwise you'd have to be either lying or seriously deluded.

Sure, this country is less restrictive than other countries, and I'm grateful for that, but that doesn't make it free. I'm not naïve enough to think that our society, for the first time in the history of the world, has reached the ultimate pinnacle of freedom and that no further freedoms are worth fighting for because our society is as free as any society possibly can be. I know there's still plenty of freedom-fighting to be done. There's a lot of oppression and inequality, even within our own country, and something has to be done about it. It doesn't matter if people elsewhere are even less free. All infringements upon human liberty need to be questioned and, if found to be unnecessary, abolished.