Few words have so many different meanings that are so incongruous with one another as the word freedom. At first, the expectation is that freedom equates to no rules. It’s a fallacious notion, for real freedom has rules—ones that are necessarily fair, moral, even metaphysical—and, like all time-honored traditions, they took eons for humans to extrapolate, to create civil order out of primal chaos. “No rules” negatively (though accurately) connotes a “Mad Max”-like world of lawless, base immorality, where one may pursue selfish gain without restraint, rob and steal others’ property, engage in extramarital affairs, or wantonly harm our fellow man. Typically, people of conservative persuasion around the globe have found such acts repugnant; some even misjudge or malign Western freedom on such bases. Yet, those who are well versed in Western traditions know that such repulsive acts as theft, adultery, and murder could never produce real freedom, but just the opposite. For in …