I think that if you reread that passage, erasing from your mind that it is a truthful statement, and recognize it as a point of view which you do not share, you will see more clearly what is meant. You do not have to agree with what is said. Perhaps that is why it is confusing to you.

IT IS NO CONDEMNATION TO BE FREE!

It means that both points of view have drawbacks to them.

Both a dictatorship and freedom are oppressions. The dictator oppresses those under the rule of a dictatorship….. and those who have freedom are oppressed by their own conscience.

So there is a certain freedom enjoyed by those under a dictatorship, that all their decisions are made for them. So, they are able to live their lives knowing that all those big decisions have already been figured out for them.

The person who is free from dictatorship is now responcible for their own actions, and must suffer the consequences of bad decision making.

However, if a dictator is a bad person, who makes bad decisions for those under his rule, the oppression felt can be monumental.

The free person may make a few bad decisions, and has to pay the price for that, but the free person never has to worry about experiencing the oppression of a bad dictator.

i think the passage became confusing to you because of the use of contradicting words. You just have to have a clear perspective of the what each words mean. Being free is not to be feeling condemn but liberated. enjoying the liberty to choose and not haunting the conscience if you did choose the right or wrong. Yes, freedom comes with a responsiblity of a taken action, and consequences to face. But in the end, whatever your taken choice is, you have to believe and stand by it. Just enjoy it rather than making it a nightmare.

Our choices and our freedom to make them numbs our conscience. We become desensitized to that which is considered wrong in the name of doing as we please. We become so accustomed to making our personal choices that we lose our accountability to our fellow man. Our individual freedom becomes more important than our feeling of responsibility to our community and those around us. Our mindset becomes, “I have a right to do as I please.” The startling truth is: each individual’s rights end where the next individual’s rights begin. Our behaviors, in fact, have a ripple effect and impact everyone and everything around us.

When our decisions are fed to us, our mind becomes numb because we do not have to think about how to act. We have no accountability for our actions when someone else has fed us our behavior.

Dictatorship makes a robotic person. However, freedom makes man accountable for his actions. It is therefore vital to inculcate human value and virtues first so that freedom produce goodness.

That sounds like a poor manipulation..Or a dominant expression…