No matter what system governs a society, basic civil and political freedoms have to be protected. These include freedom of speech, freedom of association, a free press, and the right to protest. No government should be above the law or beyond criticism, and freedom from arbitrary government interference is essential. Every justice system should protect individual rights and uphold due process and the rule of law.

Freedom also includes the right to freely choose one’s own culture. The idea that everyone in an English-speaking country should speak English is the antithesis to freedom. In a multi-cultural society, all cultures should be equal. Language is an integral part of any culture, so telling people that they must speak English is the equivalent of saying that one culture- the English culture- is preferable and supreme to the others. If we insist people speak English, then there is no multi-cultural society at all, but really one dominant English culture that merely tolerates acceptable aspects of other cultures, so long as any differences do not extend to language. That is not freedom, but a form of dictatorship.

Freedom should extend to free migration. People in richer countries may be worried about the influx of the poor from all over the world, but if they tackled world poverty, then that concern would not arise. Equally, if state terrorism came to an end, there would be no risk of non-state terrorists freely entering hostile states. This world belongs to all of us, so subject to constraints of space, we should be able to move around it freely, without being intercepted by states and forced to comply with numerous bureaucratic regulations.