This is an essay explaining the nature of individual freedom and its role as the foundation of personal safety, peace, and economic security. In exploding the perverted anarchic concept of freedom, the essay demonstrates why such actions as capriciously shouting “fire” in a crowded theater do not constitute an exercise of freedom but a violation of freedom, and that there are absolutely no justifiable restrictions of individual freedom. The essay traces all of the growing problems experienced by the United States today to its government's growing violations of the country's own magnificent founding principle of individual freedom.Among the topics discussed are the following:•The Meaning of Freedom•Freedom and Government•Freedom as the Foundation of Security•The Indivisibility of Economic and Political Freedom•The Rational Versus the Anarchic Concept of Freedom•The Decline of Freedom in the United States•The Growth of Corruption as the Result of the Decline of Freedom•A Postscript: Free Speech and “Occupy Wall Street”This essay is essential reading for anyone who wants to defend individual freedom against the ever growing encroachments of the government and government-sanctioned hoodlums, above all those who are able to violate the freedom of speech under the banner of free speech, as though their trespass for the purpose of making noise were the equivalent of an invitation by a property owner to speak and disseminate ideas.