I think you're exactly correct.

It drives me nuts when people talk about freedom, they have no actual idea what freedom is or takes and their actions undermine it. Freedom doesn't mean "I can do whatever I like with no consequences", but that's what people really want.

Freedom is just a better sounding word than selfishness these days :(

<Steps-down-from-soapbox>

>Freedom doesn't mean "I can do whatever I like with no consequences"

Depends on your definition of freedom. The issue with this kind of freedom is that your freedom encroaches on other people's freedoms, so most societies agreed that we should have less freedom in favor of fairness.

Exactly where the trade-off is to be made is subjective and cannot be derived from facts alone.

We have a lot of freedoms that encroach on other people's freedoms, it's impossibly to make a clear cut on where fair ends and personal freedom begins.

Allowing people the freedom to sell sugar will inevitably lead to more diabetes and earlier death. It tastes good and it's addictive.

Sugar costs a lot of people some of their freedom to live and move. But if we didn't allow selling sugar we would take away the seller's freedom and the freedom to choose from the consumer.

Your sugar example is no good. Sugar doesn’t take people’s freedoms away. It has no agency and doesn’t enforce anything. Like any action, eating sugar may have consequences good or bad for the individual, but that has nothing to do with freedoms unless the government starts telling people they may not eat more than x grams per day or something like that.

In the case of masks and lockdowns the "freedom" in question is more analogous to drunk driving. This is in the sense that exercising the freedom could cause the people around you some severe life-altering problems, and you're imposing that risk without their consent or knowledge.

That's always been the case. Thousands of people die every year from influenza spread by asymptomatic carriers. COVID-19 is more deadly, but that's just a difference in degree. Where do we draw the line?

Without their knowledge or consent? You can’t tell whether people are wearing masks and make a decision about whether to be around them? I suspect that even a blind person could do so the moment somebody started talking.

I’m sure there are still better comparisons than drunk driving. If you are under 55, the risk is about the same as dying from a car accident.

Cue Mel Gibson as William Wallace.