"And just like that"

[Destroyer]

Ferm, thank you for your post. In other words, that is exactly what I was trying to say and convey with my original post. You just said it a lot better than I did.

Our rights are fragile things, and little by little they have been and are being taken away from us. They have been removed, as I've said before, under the guise of "protecting" us Big Brother is protecting us from harm and in the process he's taking away tiny pieces of our liberty. Just a little bit each time. Salt water fishing licenses? ridiculous. Being put in jail for a mandatory 5 years in prison because a little metal box you owned was capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition?.. unthinkable. A farmer can't use his land because there is a pond on it so it's considered wetlands?... inconceivable. Can't smoke in stores and public places?... preposterous. These are just a few of the liberties that we have lost, all in the guise of "protecting" us. Our history is littered with hundreds more, most of them happening in the last 75 years. As long as we are willing to give up ANY of our freedoms just to be safer eventually we will be neither free or safe. And the enemy will be the very government that took our liberties away from us in the first place.