It was pretty much over for freedom after the passage of the income tax amendment in 1913, in which Uncle Sam was now privy and partner to every dollar you earn.
Right after that they no longer needed the tax revenue from alcohol sales (made up about 45% of total federal receipts at the time), they passed an amendment outlawing alcohol in 1920, coincidentally the same year they expanded the right to vote to women.
This today is just nationalization of the health care industry at gunpoint, small potatoes compared to the extortion that goes on via the IRS and the DC Apparatus.
And yet people on this forum continue to believe that DC will provide a solution, if only the right people are in office.
Never happen, because Washington is the problem, never the solution (both parties).
They just fight over who gets to control the money extorted from the suckers outside the Beltway.
You make excellent points.
We could also argue that American liberty ended with the Civil War and the coercion of the South in the North’s priorities.
Or even with the Whisky Rebellion put down by George Washington.
I won’t get into a discussion of all that; it’s clear enough that the nation has passed a major landmark in the long and lamentable history of government power grabs.
I’m sure the Founding Fathers are reeling in their graves at the subversion of their noble intentions.