An individual needs and wants freedom. Freedom in action, living, and enjoyment. An individual also needs security which includes physical security (we can’t watch our backs all the time) and resource security (we need to consume the necessities of life). To get security an individual makes deals or pacts or partnerships with other individuals. A deal or pact necessarily contains duties to ensure the freedom and security of the group. These duties necessarily constrain the freedom of the individual; if you must do something or must not do something that restricts your freedom. If it is your duty to follow certain rules laid down for the security of the group then that restricts your freedom. This principle applied to an individual also applies to a group which also needs both freedom and security.
An individual or a group cannot have 100% freedom and 100% security at the same time. The degrees of freedom and security are defined by culture, civilization and diversity. The trade-off exists in every nation. Only Antarctica, where there is no nation, can we have 100% freedom. Until more people arrive to settle there; and then it becomes like everywhere else.
The trade-off or equation between freedom and security is not frozen for all time. It varies with time as the civilization and nation evolves. A genuine issue that arises is: If there is less security and less freedom at the same time then a systemic change or improvement is needed. Otherwise, the trade-off is going to exist.
This applies to every kind of freedom we can think of. Freedom of speech and expression is the most widely discussed and debated. The ideas of “freedom of speech”, though not new or unknown to the rest of the world, became particularly prominent in Europe and the West due to the brutality of history. It became the only solution against tyranny. Laws can exist and institutions can exist. But without free speech and expression they cannot apply or be applied. But freedom of speech does have its limitations too, determined by culture and context. For example, in Germany Nazi symbols, groups, and speech are banned by law. This restriction has arisen out of necessity and due to German history. Another example is the illegality of using speech to foment violence. Speech is a powerful tool. In the wrong hands it can be abused for many anti-societal and anti-civilizational ends, which ultimately hurts security. So freedom of speech can never be absolute. No freedom can.
The more security you have the more restrictions you will have on your freedom. You do not have the freedom (or you ought not) to litter on the roads or public places. This is for physical security (health, cleanliness, hygiene). There are nation-wide freedoms and securities as well as those for private spaces. Private spaces need to exist if we are to have a diverse pluralistic society which tries to accommodate as much variety as possible without harming the local or national commons. The Freedom-Security equation for private spaces may vary so long as it does not clash with the principles of the larger tribe (the nation) or hurt the sub-tribes or sub-identities.
As long as we are civilized and live as a civilization we are going to have to adjust ourselves to the Freedom-Security equation and indeed adjust the equation itself as the need arises. We can notice that this equation does not exist, or is very distorted, when it comes to groups larger than the national tribe. While international institutions exist, they cannot guarantee freedom nor security. The American experiment and its evolution as the “policeman” of the world has failed, given historical and recent events in 2026. America can neither guarantee “freedom and democracy” around the world nor provide for its security, either by itself or by the panoply of institutions and nations that it purports to lead and manage. A nation’s interests will always come first and if the nation does not follow its own principles when it comes to its external behavior then there is neither freedom nor security for any other nation. Today, the nation states of the world have to contend with the fact that no one is there to save them or protect them for the policeman turned out to be a rogue. Every nation must now seek to look after its own interests and hopefully realize that the path to peace and stability does not lie in conflict but in the recognition of shared principles by which to live.
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