# My mother says the government never had the right to make us stay home since we're a "free country." Is this true?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mother-says-the-government-never-had-the-right-to-make-us-stay-home-since-were-a-free-country-is-this-true/929204>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [December 29, 2020, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mother-says-the-government-never-had-the-right-to-make-us-stay-home-since-were-a-free-country-is-this-true/929204 "2020-12-29T23:52:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![CorpusNeptune](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/corpusneptune/32/17561_2.png) [@CorpusNeptune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CorpusNeptune)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2020, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-mother-says-the-government-never-had-the-right-to-make-us-stay-home-since-were-a-free-country-is-this-true/929204/1 "2020-12-29T23:52:52Z")

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**I put this in Politics and Elections since this topic is in that sort of nature, but What\_Exit or another mod can change the category if another is more appropriate.**

Anyways, I’m on the fence with another one of my mother’s opinions. I mentioned to my mother as we were watching the news that we should do _way_ better in following government orders and mandates in the future, as us not doing that is one of the reasons the pandemic streched out for as long as it did.  
However, my mom commented that the government never had the right to mandate us staying home or anything in that nature, as “we’re a free country,” as she described it. She also mentioned “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet; we’ve had this discussion,” thinking I got my opinion from here or somewhere else. 😑

Again, I’m on the fence with this one. A lot of fears and/or opinions she has can have a reasonable explanation, but for this one, I’m just baffled. **Do correct me if my point of view is completely warped, however!**

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