Quote Originally Posted by honedright View Post
...In a trully free society, shouldn't free individuals have the freedom to make either good choices or bad? In other words, the freedom to be responsible AND irresponsible (ie - negligent)?...
It would seem to me that individuals always have the freedom to make good/bad choices. It's the consequences of their choice that are the killer...

Society: • noun (pl. societies) the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. (Oxford English dictionary)

I think that if you want absolute total freedom then it is unlikely your society will ever consist of more than yourself. Otherwise, it's necessary that you compromise some of your "freedoms" to be a member of the society. It would seem that the very nature of a society puts it in conflict with other societies at some level. The problem comes when individuals become part of the society and fail to embrace the necessary compromises.