Freedom, and The Pursuit of Freedom From Personal Intrusion


An issue that has greatly disturbed me and some of my elderly or debilitated clients for some time is the right of those who intrude on personal freedom of others. Each of us possesses the right and freedom to be left alone and to pursue the right to personal freedom from intrusion.

What I mean by this is that some of us are independent and dignified in our lives. At the end of our lives we envision dying in our own homes with privacy. We do not want to be placed in a nursing home with strangers touching us and passersby gawking at us as doors are inconsiderately left open. We are akin to old Indians who want to wander off and die in peace.

However, in most, if not all states, law makers and courts will step in to "protect us from ourselves."....because "we are not caring for ourselves" or "are not protecting ourselves", or "acting against our best interests." What if since the earliest time we can remember, supposedly while in our right minds, we declared that this was our ambition, our longing, our right and our freedom; the freedom to be left alone, in private, and in dignity; further not to have someone else with a different agenda substitute their will for ours? What if we placed in our Last Will & Testaments a provision to disinherit those who transgressed this sacred right as we state our intent to be left alone?

I believe that we each should get to decide and that no child, spouse, law maker or court can legally and constitutionally take this right from us. I also believe that it is wise to express this desire very early, before one is gray and wrinkly. While in the past gray and wrinkly meant that wisdom had likely been acquired, the present generations, including judges, easily dismiss the gray and wrinkly. We need to litigate more of these kinds of cases. These freedoms have been lost and may never be recouped unless we do.

 

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