Freedom is the ability to do whatever you choose, provided you do not violate another person’s rights. You may direct your own life, and your neighbor may direct his. Neither possesses a general right to govern the other’s choices.

The reasoning begins with ownership. Your life belongs to you just as your neighbor’s life belongs to him. Your judgment does not automatically outrank his, nor does his outrank yours. If you claim the right to choose your occupation, practice your religion, and use your possessions, you must recognize that same right in others.

John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government described people as naturally free to direct their actions within the law of nature, without depending on another person’s permission. That independence carried a corresponding obligation: “no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions.” Locke grounded this ownership in people’s common creation by God, rather than in their wealth or position.

Thomas Jefferson gave a closely related definition of freedom in an 1819 letter to Isaac Tiffany. Rightful liberty, he wrote, is:

“unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.”

Jefferson deliberately declined to define liberty by the limits of legislative law. He recognized that the law itself could violate an individual’s rights, further stating;

"I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’; because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”

The only moral boundary of your freedom is the rights of others. A restriction does not become morally justified simply because a legislature passes it or an officer enforces it.

Suppose a town prohibits vegetable gardens in front yards because officials prefer lawns. You plant vegetables on your property. An officer orders you to remove the garden and threatens a fine. The ordinance establishes what the town demands, but it does not establish the moral authority to demand it. Under this principle, neither the officials’ preference nor the officer’s duty to enforce the ordinance justifies taking away the use of your property.

Now suppose you irrigate that garden by diverting water onto your neighbor’s property and flooding his basement. You have crossed a different boundary. Now officials are no longer asking you to satisfy their taste. At the petition of your neighbor, official may force you to stop damaging what belongs to him. Your ownership does not authorize that injury, and you are responsible for correcting the damage you wrongfully caused.

Suppose a state legislature prohibits religious meetings in homes because lawmakers believe the religion being practiced is false and spiritually harmful. You invite others into your home to worship peacefully. State troopers arrive, order you to end the meeting, and threaten to arrest you if you do not comply. The legislation establishes what the state demands, but it does not establish the moral authority to demand it. Neither the lawmakers’ beliefs nor the troopers’ orders give them authority over your conscience. Without a violation of another person’s rights, they have no moral grounds to compel you to stop.

Now suppose a religious ceremony involves physically abusing children. State troopers intervene to stop the abuse and protect them. Their moral authority comes from each child's right to be free from abuse. Religious freedom does not authorize violating those rights. The troopers are justified in stopping the abuse.

The rights being defended establish both the grounds for intervention and its limits.

Freedom is the liberty to act however you choose without violating another person’s life , liberty or property. Therefore, the only moral authority one has to use force upon another, is in the defense of rights. This especially applies to government official.

John Stuart Mill addressed this distinction in On Liberty, published in 1859. He rejected a person’s own supposed welfare as sufficient grounds for compulsion: “His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”

This does not mean every choice is honorable, or worthy of support. You can oppose someone’s conduct without using force to prohibit it. You can refuse to participate, decline to trade with him, or try to persuade him. Respecting his freedom does not require agreeing with his decisions.

Nor does every loss amount to a violation of rights.

If you open a repair shop and customers choose you over an established competitor, that competitor may lose income. His loss alone does not establish wrongdoing. He owns his equipment and earnings; he does not own his customers’ choices. Otherwise, protecting his income would require denying other people the freedom to choose whom they trade with.

That is slavery.

But if you obtain his tools by theft or his customers through fraud, the issue changes. Someone else’s property or choice has been wrongfully violated. Those are grounds for accountability.

Freedom and its consequence apply equally to an unpopular person and a respected one. Greater wealth, stronger convictions, or more supporters do not make one person’s choices right or wrong.

Freedom gives each person substantial independence and a definite responsibility. He may pursue his purposes, his desires, his will, but he must respect the same independence in those around him. When he violates another's rights, he must answer for it. When he has not violated another's rights, disagreement alone supplies no rightful authority over his life, and government, law or not, has no jurisdiction to act against him.

This is freedom!

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