Have you ever just sat back and imagined how tough it was for slaves in the early 1800's? They were not able to do anything without permission including taking a shower or using a toilet. While some had a decent life as a housemaid, others lived their life doing back-breaking work. The slaves had no say in what they could or could not do. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), freedom is the exemption or release from slavery or imprisonment. While that definition works when talking about slavery, we cannot really use that definition today because the world has freed itself from almost all forms of slavery. The latter part of the definition speaks of imprisonment which is still in use today, but holds its context strictly to slaves. Freedom's, like many other words in our language, context change over time. Freedom went from only having to do with slaves to where it is today. Freedom today focuses mainly on the state of being able to act without restraint. And what many people do not want to believe is that there are still thousands of people with very little freedom.
             The first main reason why the definition of freedom that OED uses is not entirely correct is that it focuses only on slaves. Freedom effects everyone no matter if you are a slave or imprisoned. Everyone in the United States has about as much freedom as possible. We just think of our freedom in a different way than the slaves did. A friend of mine, for example, has been desperately trying to get the privilege of staying out at night until 12 o'clock. He has been asking and asking for weeks now and still has not changed his parents' minds. His parents are his guardians so by law they have a little power over him and still have not given him the freedom to stay out late. This shows that even the teenagers of America have freedom, and we are always looking to get more. The OED definition of freedom, exemption or release from slaver...