Quote Originally Posted by duby229 View Post
you can't limit something that never existed in the first place. Murder is not a freedom, even if it was legal. The people that have to live where murderers exist legally are not free.
Are you trying to be obtuse on purpose?

Come on, this isn't rocket science. We can't all have the freedom to do what we want, because some might want to make others not have the freedom to do what they want. Freedoms conflict with each other.

And what do you mean "never existed in the first place"? Go back enough time and anything was free - back in caveman times, you were TOTALLY free to murder anyone you wanted - no laws, no courts, no one would blame or accuse you of anything. Later on, we got tribal justice and stuff like that. Eye for an eye, and we kind of made it up as we went along from there.

Once again, can you please, please try to get this through your thick skull - a "freedom" does NOT imply that you're only free to do nice things. It's morally ambiguous! You can have freedom from something, but you can also have freedom to do something, and it doesn't matter what that "something" is - any action imaginable fits there, because "freedom" doesn't contain any moral code or even any ethical code in it, it's just freedom, for good or bad.

Which is why "freedom" without qualifications is practically meaningless, other than as a rhetoric device, seeing as it doesn't really mean anything without qualifying what you're free to/from.

The definition of freedom is clear
No, it's not - not as an unqualified word. Freedom by itself is meaningless.

Examples include, free of charge = exemption from cost, freedom of speech = exemption from not being able to speak your mind, a free man = exemption from being owned by someone, etc, etc. In any case freedom is the exemption from limitation
"Free of charge" is entirely unrelated, it's a different concept (gratis, not libre).
"Freedom of speech" - limited in many very real ways. You're not allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre. You're not allowed to threaten people.
"Free man" - limited in many ways. You're never free to do what you want, you have to follow rules and laws or you get that freedom taken away.

All of the freedoms you mentioned are limited in some way, in order to provide maximum benefit to everyone, and to lower the incentive to abuse those freedoms. The exact same way the freedoms provided by GPL are limited by certain rules you have to abide by, in order to make sure no one abuses the freedom.