Broadly speaking, freedom is a situation in which a person can do whatever he or she desires. Of course, the scope of what that person can do needs to be limited; otherwise, a disaster is likely to take place. This might pose the question of whether freedom really exists or not.
The fact that most people live in society nowadays calls for some laws and regulations. The non-existence of them would only make a very dangerous world to live: there would be much more crimes and murders. The fact that a person is limited in his or her desires spawns a great deal of peace of mind, as someone else might be disturbed - or even damaged - otherwise. Therefore, it is out of the question that freedom needs to have certain limitations.
Meanwhile, some people claim that a freedom in which one can do whatever he or she desires without any limitations whatsoever does not even deserves its name. According to them, such a freedom should rather be called licentiousness or dissipation. The truth is that freedom should be rational and within the ranges of the standards that have been established by civilized people for thousands of years; otherwise, life is likely to become unpleasant for some people.
In many countries where there is freedom of speech, it needs to be limited within the ranges of truth and it is still called freedom. For instance, in those countries one is allowed to say whatever he or she wants as long as it is true, since lying is likely to cause damages to some people. When the damage is caused by a true statement, there is nothing illegal about it because the damaged individual is believed to have deserved it.
Another way of looking at freedom is by focusing on the fact that one is not dependent on someone else. This being the case, there are also some limitations. When living in society, one person quite often needs something from someone else. One needs to obtain food and clothing from other people; there does not seem to be a way of obtaining it all by oneself.
To sum up, freedom is to exist in order for people to live a more pleasant life. This freedom needs to be limited by rules and regulations in order to avoid chaos, and it is not realistic to expect that one can ever live totally independent from anybody else in the world.
