What Happened to American Freedom? | The Truth About Liberty Today

Ryan Haylett

You mention the American Revolution and everybody’s first thought is, “Oh yeah, taxes! The colonists just didn’t wanna pay King George anymore.” Like it was some group of coupon-clipping rebels who just snapped one day over a tea tax.

Ryan Haylett

Not really.

Ryan Haylett

It was about something much, much bigger.

Ryan Haylett

The founding generation wasn’t just asking to keep a few more coins in their pockets. They were talking about agency, about self-governance. It was about saying, "I am the one who makes decisions for my life, not some ass hole across an ocean.

Ryan Haylett

This guy, he’s sitting in his palace, never even seen a pine tree that wasn’t carved into a chair, telling people how to live 3,000 miles away."

Ryan Haylett

King George, He was like that dad who says, “As long as you live under my roof, you’ll follow my rules,” but then the kids move out and start their own country. “Fine, go ahead, see if you can do better. And don’t come crawling back when you need someone to fight the French!”

Ryan Haylett

Liberty wasn’t a new idea, not by a long shot. Philosophers had been kicking it around for centuries before 1776. But what the revolutionaries did, they took this abstract concept—the idea of liberty—and made it something visceral.

Ryan Haylett

Something you could feel in your gut.

Ryan Haylett

They weren’t just talking theory. They were living it, bleeding for it. They wanted liberty to be more than a word in a speech. They wanted it to be real, tangible, something you could see play out in your everyday life.

Ryan Haylett

When you read the writings of people like Jefferson or Adams, you notice how often they link liberty to morality, to this idea of personal agency. Liberty wasn’t about doing whatever you wanted—it was about having the freedom to do what you ought to do, what you believe is right.

Ryan Haylett

That’s powerful, right? To govern yourself, not just in a political sense but in a moral sense too.

Ryan Haylett

I had this moment the other day, right? I’m sitting there, trying to download some new app-like an idiot-just scrolling through this mountain of terms and conditions.

Ryan Haylett

You ever see how long these things are? You know, the kind nobody reads unless you’re a lawyer or you just really hate yourself. It’s like the Dead Sea Scrolls for selling your soul.

Ryan Haylett

Nobody reads this crap!

Ryan Haylett

And it hits me: this is what liberty looks like now.

Ryan Haylett

Not fighting redcoats, just clicking “agree” and hoping I’m not signing up to donate a kidney to Jeff Bezos.

Ryan Haylett

The Founders would have a stroke. They’re rolling in their graves like, “We risked everything for liberty and you’re giving it away for a free trial, or a 10% off coupon and a dancing cat filter?”

Ryan Haylett

We threw tea in the harbor-now you throw privacy in the trash to have some influencer sell you vitamins that’ll turn your pee neon?

Ryan Haylett

When you look back at the Revolution, it ain’t just about muskets and some dude riding through the night yelling, “The British are coming!” No, it’s about this crazy idea-like a living, breathing thing-that made people say,

Ryan Haylett

“Wait, maybe I’m not just some pawn in some king’s game.”

Ryan Haylett

Liberty wasn’t just a slogan to slap on a flag; it was more like a wake-up call, a big ol’ moral slap in the face.

Ryan Haylett

And that idea of liberty didn’t just freeze in 1776 like some museum piece. Every generation since has grabbed that idea, played with it, and tried to make it fit their messed-up world.

Ryan Haylett

Some nailed it, some totally dropped the ball. But the story? It’s still going.

Ryan Haylett

Still a mess. Still worth fighting over.

Ryan Haylett

And yeah, we’re all part of it-even if half the time we’re just screwing it up in new and creative ways.

Ryan Haylett

In many instances, reshaping liberty actually means progress. Take the abolitionists in the 19th century. For them, liberty wasn’t just some abstract talking point politicians used to score cheap applause. It was about survival, dignity, actual humanity.

Ryan Haylett

You had leaders like Frederick Douglass stepping up and saying, “Hey, maybe this ‘land of the free’ stuff should actually mean something. Maybe, just maybe, liberty should apply to everyone, not just the people who wrote the rules.”

Ryan Haylett

Douglass, man, he didn’t just talk about liberty; he lived it, fought for it. Every speech was this, this reminder that liberty without equality is a half-finished story. He forced America to look itself in the eye and ask the hard questions: Who’s really free? Who’s still waiting on the promise of liberty?

Ryan Haylett

And and it’s not just the 19th century, right? Fast forward a bit, and you’ve got the 1960s—the Civil Rights Movement, people marching, pushing for liberty to mean more than just the absence of chains.

Ryan Haylett

They wanted liberty to mean opportunity, fairness.

Ryan Haylett

Liberty got expanded once again, stretched to include voices that had been ignored for far too long.

Ryan Haylett

Liberty doesn’t just grow on trees, right? It doesn’t evolve by itself. People make it happen! They push it, stretch it, actually try to make it mean something real.

Ryan Haylett

Look at what happened, people stood up, made noise, put their necks on the line, and actually moved the needle. That’s the good stuff! That’s people saying, “Hey, let’s open the damn box and let everybody in for once.”

Ryan Haylett

But you know how it goes.

Ryan Haylett

There’s always somebody trying to stuff it all back in, keep it neat and tidy for the same old crowd.

Ryan Haylett

It’s this constant back-and-forth, like a tug-of-war where nobody ever wins for long.

Ryan Haylett

And now, here we are. Our turn at the wheel. We’ve got our own mess of problems and hopes, and the big question is: what are we gonna do with liberty now?

Ryan Haylett

Are we gonna step up and keep pushing it forward, or just sit back and let it get watered down by people who’d rather keep things comfortable for themselves?

Ryan Haylett

It’s on us. What are we letting it mean? Because if we don’t shape it, you know someone else will-and they’ll probably screw it up.

Ryan Haylett

So here we are-modern life, right? Liberty’s not some statue in a museum; it’s a freakin’ battleground. Everywhere you look, there’s surveillance tech-your phone’s listening, your TV’s watching, hell, your fridge probably knows when you’re sad. And we’re all like, “Oh, it’s for safety, it’s for security.” Yeah, sure. Next thing you know, you’re getting ads for therapy because you sighed too loud near your Alexa.

Ryan Haylett

And seriously, where’s the line? At what point does “keeping each other safe” just turn into “ratting each other out?”

Ryan Haylett

It’s like, “Hey, I see you bought a pressure cooker and googled ‘fireworks’-congrats, you’re on a list now!”

Ryan Haylett

We’re all just one weird Amazon purchase away from being in a government database.

Ryan Haylett

You zoom out and you see it’s always been this tug-of-war. Freedom versus control, agency versus safety. It’s like every generation, we’re pulling on this rope, and half the time we’re not even sure which side we’re on. One minute you’re for privacy, next minute you’re yelling for more cameras in the subway because some guy sneezed weird.

Ryan Haylett

And that’s the thing that gets me-these fights for liberty, they echo back through history. Revolution, abolition, civil rights-every time, it’s people standing up and saying, “Hey, let’s make this thing bigger, let’s actually mean it this time!” And now? Feels like we’re at one of those crossroads again. Except now, we’ve got smartphones and politicians who can’t even agree on what day it is.

Ryan Haylett

Let me leave you with this. A couple of years ago while in Kyoto, I saw a family in a train station, a dad and his two young kids.

Ryan Haylett

They were running, laughing, just being free, you know? And it hit me—this is what liberty is supposed to feel like.

Ryan Haylett

Not just being “safe,” not just surviving, but actually living.

Ryan Haylett

Not having to look over your shoulder every five seconds, not worrying if your next joke is gonna get you canceled or your next text flagged by some algorithm.

Ryan Haylett

That’s the kind of liberty worth fighting for. Not the abstract kind, but the real, human kind. The kind you can feel.

Ryan Haylett

In your gut.

Ryan Haylett

So where do we go from here?

Ryan Haylett

Liberty’s always been messy, always unfinished.

Ryan Haylett

That’s not a bug, it’s a feature!

Ryan Haylett

We get to shape it, screw it up, fix it, and try again.

Ryan Haylett

Heavy responsibility? Yeah. But honestly, it’s also the best shot we’ve got at making life actually mean something.

Ryan Haylett

So don’t let anyone tell you it’s over, or that you don’t have a say. Because that’s when you really lose it.