Freedom is being used to mean no consequences: this passage is the counter-example.

This is the book's best answer to its own critique, and it cuts the other way. Heinlein's freedom is sometimes sold as escape from consequences, but here the text insists: real freedom is the willingness to own what you choose, permanently. He eternally was the action he had taken at cusp is the opposite of consequence-free living. The trial of the book against itself finds one verdict in its favor: where Mike is free, he is free because he accepts the cost.