No. Slackware was my first distro after MS-DOS and Windows 95/2000 and the benefit was that it was a really simple thing, conceptually, and quite malleable.

So if someone's suggesting a distro that's good for "reclaiming your freedom", then one of the simplest distros out there, made and maintained by a single person and well docummented, but still challenging enough that you end up learning something, should be a legitimate way to go.