1 You have a pet cat, it was born in a house, raised and hand-fed in a house, it has never run outside the house. The cat would consider itself free to run about the house. Should you then impose a further limit (such as locking it into a room) the cat may well immediately cry to get out of the room, not because the room is not comfy but only because of the limitation of movement through the house.
2 You adopt a "wild" domestic cat. It is a cat that lived its entire life outside. It may show periods of contentment inside, but it consistantly displays a yearning to go outside.
Freedom is defined by parameters, either percieved or real. So long as you are the cat in scenario 1 where the limits on you are not so limiting as to impede what you have become habituated to see as being free, you will experience no internal conflict and see yourself as "free", ignoring or rationalizing the limits placed on you as irrelevent to "your freedom". "you are free to run about the house and that is all you want".
Watch carefully how people define their freedom not in terms of what they can and can not do, but moreso in terms of what they can and can not do compared to somebody else. You see somebody able to do something you can't, and you want it (a form of the scarity effect). You see somebody more constrained than yourself and you reinforce your belief of being free.
Look at the "average canadian", who earns less than 40K, is carrying a high mortgage, probably has enough savings to retain current setup for a few weeks if his/her job was lost, and objectively ask how free the individual is.
The question then became one of what is "true freedom"? (if there is one).
I will begin by saying freeom is a state of mind. Anything held onto (a thought, a material object, etc) has a limiting effect on what would be "true freedom".
Discuss.
