I am free, until I’m not

I have rights, or so I thought.
I have a voice, until I don’t.
You will listen, until you won’t. 

I can prosper, to a point.
When I fight back, I disappoint.
I can protest, if it’s the right way.
I can speak out, if I edit what I say.

Can you see the irony?
To be free, and yet…not me?
Bound by rules I didn’t make.
Forced into etiquette, for others’ sake.
Force-fed rhetoric, my stomach can’t take.