The freedom that comes from being feared is tempting for people who have suffered that fear themselves, as many one-percenters probably have. For people raised in safety, freedom can seem like a luxury, like money or good health, but first and foremost, it’s the absence of threat. A person who can be killed without any consequences for the killers is not free in the most important sense of the word, and imagining otherwise probably means that the systems that keep you safe in your life—the armies, the police officers, the laws—are so unobtrusive, you’ve simply stopped noticing them.
