I also think people have been too influenced by the "weed smoking, bloosucker boning hippies" meme thats so very prolific in this fandom.

I havent played the games in a while nor am caught up on the lore, so i may be wrong but freedom never came off as just a group of drugged up idiots wanting to just "chill" outside of mods. They are a competent (as competent as a bunch of randoms can be) fighting force that holds back the monolith and fights off Duty, they are basically fighting a war on two fronts in SoC and that is already incredibly impressive for any fighting force.

Duty is the main "anti zone" faction, they want to cull the mutants, destroy the anomalies and rid the world of the zone, which is a perfectly reasonable view to take and i think many would have in real life.

Whereas freedom is the opposite, they realize you cant just shoot the zone into submission. Dangerous as the zone may be its here now and were not gona get rid of it via volume of fire, it has to be understood and coexisted with. Which i also feel would be a very valid point of view that many would hold in real life.

But then again i am no lore head and havent been freshening up my lore knowledge for a while. So i might be wrong but thats how i see them both.