“Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.”

a good spin on the golden rule

Freedom is the choice to make lemonade out of the lemons life gives you, or to whine about all of those sour lemons. We are the sum of our natural dispositions, talents, and events, and how we choose to use them.

Losers might pretend to believe this, but freedom is much more than making do...

It certainly implies that we are only as free as we choose to be.

A rather liberal twist on the golden rule. Government has the gold (from us) and they make more and more rules that are destroying our country. Anyone who thinks the United States is a free country has never heard of the CIA, FBI, BATFE, NAFTA, CAFTA, the Patriot Act, or even terrorism.

A terrorised nation or person can decide to mirror this terrorism or decide not to. The rights of man are not at issue here, for everyman or woman is free even under the harshest regime. It's what they decide to do under these circumstances that define them. Sartre never said freedom meant a long life he just said we can do what we like and remember 'hell is other people' . When asked by one of his students if he should join the french resistance sartre gave him a response along the lines of do what's right for you. His message or definition of freedom differs greatly from a US perspective which is fairly limited and often blames other's for their regulated and controlled nation. Sartre's works offer a perspective today's philosopher's don't and rather than discuss the linguistics of freedom he went for the bullseye and gave a deeper message that is often missed by most extracts or quotes taken from his works.