as far as "freedom" goes, anybody should be allowed to make any kind of change and make any proposal they want and have the freedom to put it out there and ask others to follow it if they want. but also it is our duty to fight proposals that have a very high possibility of splitting bitcoin into two. in my opinion the damage that such type of split can cause is far more dire than anything else.
BIP148 would have basically created a SegWit chain with minority support (~10% miners which could have gone to 30% if the rest of the SegWit supporting miners switched and about 10% of the nodes) and the rest would have remained in legacy chain rejecting each other!
I agree with you 100%. And not only that, but also something that could have high possibilities of negatively affecting Bitcoin's future growth rate.
That's where our aim should be, based on the core principles of Bitcoin and the reason it was created. We shouldn't betray that. Changing the world is the main goal, not quick temporary measurements.