“Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne...Oh no! It's a...long distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting.”

Freedom is earned by the application of discipline and responsibility.

Among many very exhausting struggles of the solitary free man are the maintainability of personal integrity, morality, and responsibility in a despotic and tyrannical world of compelled compliance, license, victimless crimes, and larceny with impunity.

It's a matter of manners they're talking about here. If you keep your manners through any situation one might turn the tide at some stage which is where ever you happen to be and whatever the circumstance might be. Swimming can sometimes be easier than trudging through the swamp muck.

Camus' philosophical tail-chasing assumes that the un-provable is false, and that humanity's existence is inherently without meaning. I respectfully disagree.

I think what Camus is eluding to is that Freedom is never final -- it is a long if not constant effort. The rights to Freedom are not questioned, but can we really say that the victories of Freedom in the past are automatically transferred to the next generation? Liberty requires Responsibility -- personal responsibility, and perhaps any celebration of the victories of Freedom should never be taken as final.

...if I must stand alone...so be it...for freedom will be mine.

However, a little shot of sweet tea along the course is encouraged, decaffeinated if you can find it.