Aaron Leedy
Mrs. Toppings
College English 102
04 March 2015
Freedom
People have the desire for freedom as well as a desire for limitations on their freedom.
Freedom and the limitations that come with it are needed to live peacefully. Absolute freedom cannot be achieved because when you put limitations in place you take away from that freedom.
Without rules governing our society, people would be able to do what they want to each other without fear of punishment. An examination of the advantages and disadvantages of both arguments helps this become clearer.
One of the major reasons freedom is so desirable is because many of the limitations on freedom are not allowing humans the right to have control over their bodies. Control of the human body is the only thing that people have complete power over. A large number of the prohibited freedoms are crimes where the criminal makes himself the victim. For example, the use of drugs, prostitution, dodging the draft, entering the country illegally, and buying alcohol and tobacco for minors. All of these crimes are punishable under the law. These crimes are set apart from most others because the person willingly chooses to victimize themselves (An exception can be made sometimes in the case of prostitution if they are being forced to prostitute against their own will). What people choose to do to themselves should be the least of our worries as a country. The last thing the government should have control over is what you choose to do to yourself. As long as you are not directly harming anyone else in the process, the

government should not waste their time and money on something that is so tiny in comparison to crimes involving a victim. In general, people do not agree with the government controlling what they can and cannot do to themselves. It should be no one's decision but the person them self if they want to be homeless, drug addicted, or a prostitute. As long as the damage done affects only them. These laws only exist in response to popular demand. An immense amount of money, time and labor goes to waste dealing with these types of crimes. It would be a lot more productive and profitable to let people have rule over what they do to their own bodies. There is no reason why we need to put this much energy into people who do not even care enough for themselves to change their own lives. It would save us money on law enforcement and greatly reduce our crime rate if we would just let them do what they want to themselves.
The real problem in America is when people are doing things to intentionally harm another person. This has been happening since the beginning of time and for reasons people seem not to be able to figure out. Many different powerful people have spoken on this very issue, and the sad part is that nobody seems to have learned. As Lincoln says in
The Gettysburg
Address
“…and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” And Martin Luther
King Jr. says in his
I Have a Dream “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.” Both of these very powerful men wanted innovation, they wanted a change for the positive and didn’t want to reflect on the negative, only move forward.

The worst act of intentionally harming people for no good reason in the history of
America has to be the era of the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans were treated horribly just because of the color of their skin. The only thing that African Americans wanted was freedom. They wanted to be able to live a normal life without having to fear if someone was going to come up and brutally attack them or even kill them. An example of this can also be found in Dr. King’s speech when he says “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He is trying to express how