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I remember growing up thinking the world was this big, open place. As untamed, vast and expansive the outside edges of the suburban neighborhood seemed, I still always had an avidity for the coming of the space age. The idea of endless exploration, learning, and evolving was kind of the flip side of the fear of the unknown. It seemed as if there was always hope, always a future.

Now, liberalism continues to drag us earthbound, trying to bind us into the small prisons that statism makes of the mind.

I guess for now, I'll have to settle for APOD

Concur.

To wax poetic for a moment, it seems that before the "Frontier" was "closed" in hte last years of the 19th century, there ALWAYS was a "way out" -

Literally, you could "Go West" and be free. To escape tyranny, or to start your life over. Or just to escape your neighbors, as Danial Boone and Crockett did several times as they moved west.

America (with only one exception!) was settled ENTIRELY by people of all races (the first Americans faced the Siberian winters to cross tundra and settle here!) who VOLUNTARILY LEFT their hoems and their previous lives to GO to a place where they could improve their lives: for themselves, and their children. We are most familiar with the European immigrants who gave up "security" and their families and the comforts of home to "Come to America" and better their lives. But EVERY immigrant faced (and overcame!) those same fears of the unknown, of the terrors of an international voyage, of leaving family and tradition and security.

But the Chinese and Irish who built railroads and farms did the same. As did the Pilgrim farmer, the English and German shopkeepers and Italian businessmen and the Spanish farmers in Texas and California and the French fur traders who pushed across Canada and the North seeking their fortunes.

In other mammals, those who breed dogs, cats, horses and livestock find it takes only six generations for a "new breed" to be developed from old stock. Equally, you can "breed" out any particular trait in only six generations, and the seventh and future generation will show only traces of the original pattern, color, or style.

We are seeing that trend now. Our sedentary lifestyle and a fast-growing trend towards the "Old World's" lifestyle of "security" and "conformity" and "socialism" beginning now at the third and fourth generation are forsaking the courage of those original immmigrants who sought "freedom!" and "liberty for all" and "the pursuit of happiness" above the baby blanket of "security for all" and the pleasures of immediate gratification.