RE: Bearing in mind the health and state of our western culture and society today, do you think we have too much freedom?

This is a very thought-provoking post, although I disagree substantially on certain points here, but haven't the time to read through in detail.
But, for starters- as a parent a LONG time ago, I had to confront the discipline-vs-punishment construct (of course) point-blank and face-to-muzzle (children being the separate species they are).
Aside the Skinnerian conditioning, there's oodles of carefully-constructed study that supports outright rejecting any high-level educative value to corporal punishment in the overwhelming majority of children, even into their late teens (when they are still mostly not adult). It's just fairly (there's that caveat) well-supported fact.
We won't particularly like that, it adds a HUGE burden if we're going to try to inculcate wisdom rather than simply condition through aversion techniques (nearly everything all "civilized" societies "educate" with falls into that category of operant conditioning through aversion, it's nearly ALL we know, whether it's fear of negative psychological reaction or very real physical interaction.)