The Philosophy Behind Freedumb
freedumb was born from a decade of personal struggle with the criminal justice system and the profound realization that our society’s moral judgments are often arbitrary, unjust, and disconnected from actual human behavior.
Moral Luck and Human Duality
We all contain the capacity for both good and harmful actions. Which side gets “locked in” publicly often depends on circumstance, luck, class, race, and enforcement priorities more than actual moral character.
Philosophers call this “moral luck” – how outcomes outside our control shape how we’re judged, even when our choices or intentions are similar. Two people might take the same risk; one gets unlucky and is punished harshly, the other passes unnoticed, yet society treats them as morally different.
The labels society assigns – felon, dealer, sex worker – say more about systems, enforcement priorities, and narrative power than about whether someone lives by values like honesty, consent, and mutual aid.
Challenging Social Control
The war on drugs, criminalization of sex work, and other “vice” laws have historically been tools of social control rather than public protection. These laws:
- Disproportionately target marginalized communities
- Create more harm through enforcement than they prevent
- Serve to maintain power structures rather than protect people
- Ignore the complexity of survival during economic hardship
From Personal Pain to Collective Action
This movement emerged from personal experience: suffering for nearly a decade due to a frivolous marijuana felony, navigating COVID-19 and economic uncertainty while being forced into occupations society deems “immoral,” yet consistently striving to live with integrity, honesty, and compassion.
The contradiction is clear: the same system that treats corporations as “persons” with vast rights strips basic rights from actual humans once they’re branded criminal.
Our Core Belief
“Don’t be a piece of shit” – it’s that simple. We judge people by how they treat others, not by whether their survival strategies fit church or corporate respectability standards.
What We Stand For
- Recognizing human complexity over binary moral judgments
- Practical rights education for the marginalized
- Challenging unjust laws and social stigma
- Creating community for those the system has failed
- Advocating for decriminalization and harm reduction
- Empowering people to understand and assert their rights