You know, in free societies, there is society. That is very different from "wild reign of every impulse going through the head of an individual", which of course would be impossible anyway as an individual is itself permanently full of conflicting impulses.
Not to do things and do things is only a matter of wording. Forbidding to kill people is equivalent with compelling to do something: people are compelled to repress their possible will to kill other people. Accepting to follow an interdiction is doing something. Only something that doesn't exist won't act in any way or an other.