The Postal Service is selling a new stamp with the word "FREEDOM" prominently displayed on it. As I purchased a roll of the stamps, it reminded me of my favorite quotation: "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free" by Johann Goethe.

That quotation presents one of the big challenges we face in achieving a genuinely free society. When people are convinced they are free, they have no incentive to strive for freedom. Why would they? They "know" that they already are free.

That freedom concept befuddles Americans when they first encounter libertarians or libertarianism. They'll ask, "What is libertarianism all about?" When the libertarian responds, "We are striving to live in a free society," they don't get it because, for them, they already are free.

In fact, I consider this to be one of the distinguishing characteristics between libertarians and non-libertarians. We libertarians know that we are not free, while many non-libertarians falsely believe they are free. (Other non-libertarians know that they aren't free but prefer to remain welfare-warfare state serfs rather than live lives of freedom.)

I myself was a victim of this indoctrination. And it is indoctrination. From the first grade on up in America's public (i.e., government) schools all the way up to high-school graduation, government-approved schoolteachers and government-approved textbooks pound it into the minds of students how grateful they should be to live in a free society. The Pledge of Allegiance, which students are expected to recite on a daily basis, reinforces the indoctrination ("with liberty and justice for all"). By the time students graduate high school, they are gleefully singing, "And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free."

Whenever I see a reference to the large number of young people who commit suicide, I can't help but wonder if they were thinking, "If this is the best there is — 'freedom' — I'm checking out." Since an unfree life is most definitely not "the best there is," I can't help but wonder if knowing the truth might have caused them to refrain from taking their own lives.