Starbound Lovers

Smooshed as we are between American Independence Day and France's Bastille Day, I thought I'd write a short post about freedom. Freedom is one of those nebulous words. We are free to speak as we want but are free from Tyranny. We are free to worship, but free from oppression.

But as the cliche goes, Freedom isn't free.

It requires work, diligence and self-sacrifce.

Paradoxically, those freedoms must have controls for a society to function. Your freedom of speech doesn't include the right to yell 'Fire' in a crowded movie theatre. But you can spew hatred and intolerance from a street corner as long as another person can express their opinion of your subpar intelligence or walk away.

No society can exist without some constraints of freedom, but a society with some freedoms for all should exist.

The notion of freedom is a common one is SciFi. The Empire in Star Wars provides freedom for  Tha select few. You are free to have your say in government if you survive your tour of duty in the Bug War in Starship Troopers.  In my book, The Syn-En Solution, my Synthetically-enhanced humans (aka cyborgs) don't have any rights/freedoms because they are more machine than man. Nuances of the theme ripple throughout the Hunger Games, Divergent and Dune.

What about in  your favorite SciFi movie or book? How does freedom come into play?