Do laws protect freedom?

As we know that the law was created to everything of our life is fair and right, but we can say with certainty that " Laws protect freedom"  we we need to make more clear:
The best answer I can muster is that it depends.
 
Freedom has different interpretations depending upon which nationality you live in or depending in which country you live in or depending upon your value system or shifts in your vaue system.
 
Sometimes we are told that rules or laws need to be drawn up in order to protect the freedom or perceived freedoms of the masses. 
 
For example, road signs are really important. ( Stop signs, traffic lights etc.)
Without them, people would get hurt. Is it infringing on my freedom when I have to stop and wait for the light to go green? I wonder. 
 
We all have to pay taxes. Is it infringing on my freedom when money is automatically taken out of my pay check whether I want to or not participate in all the government programs of my country or my employer or my union? I wonder. 
 
Then I have this weird idea that freedom is an illusion. 
 
I know one thing for sure. In nature, freedom is dangerous. The laws of nature have to be followed or you simply will not survive. 
 
You can dance in the medow full of daisies but I suggest you'd better be aware of predators out there.  To some of them, you are seen as prey.
 
I think of the native people on my dad's side. The laws never EVER protected their freedom or their way of life. 
 
Their lands were taken from them. All their customs and their culture was dessimated. Their value system was not respected. Children were taken away from them and put in orphanages. ( This was supposed to turn them into civilized people rather that keep on living like "savages".)
 
On and on it goes. 
 
Let's explore the phenomenon of organised religion.
 
Is the flock truly free. ( I was raised catholic.)
 
As soon as you are born the baby has to be baptised because apparently the new born baby is already a sinner. It is a ritual to rid the child of what the catholic religion terms as the original sin.
 

Original sin, also called ancestral sin,[1] is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the fall of man.[2] This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred to as a "sin nature", to something as drastic as total depravity or automatic guilt of all humans through collective guilt.[3]

 
Does it truly make a difference whether the child in baptised or not? 
 
Are the parents truly free to chose? Perhaps. 
 
50 years ago, the thought of using your freedom of choice not to have your child baptised would have been scandalous.
 
Did the churches laws infringe on your freedom? In my case, yes. 
 
From a common sense point of view, laws in general are supposed to protect 
 the masses in order to assure the general well being of the group. 
 
In my opinion laws are not, at their core essence, designed to protect freedom. 
Freedom can mean so many things to so many different people.