Mildly Interesting

That's because there's two kinds of freedom: negative and positive freedom.

Negative freedom is the "freedom from". It's the "I can do what I want and face no consequences, nobody tells me what to do" type of freedom. A man starving alone in the desert has perfect negative freedom. Nobody tells him where to die.

Positive freedom is the "freedom to". It's the "Thanks to society and corporation I can do things that would have been impossible to kings just 150 years ago" type of freedom.

These two types of freedom often contradict and often to increase positive freedoms, negatice freedoms need to be sacrificed.

The highway code is a good example of that. Thanks to the highway system, you can drive whenever, whereever you want to, at speeds that were straight-up impossible 150 years ago. No king of that era could travel as fast and without relying on anyone else as an ordinary citizen can today.

The only reason we can do so though is because there's a huge list of laws that govern in detail what you cannot do on the road. I can safely travel down the highway at high speed because I am not allowed to do so on the wrong side of the road.

Now remember which type of freedom right-wing politicians invoke over and over again and which one they want to sacrifice for it.