[Old Professer]

But the frontier is gone, we’re reduced to running in circles.

[Billthedrill]

Point taken, but at least we're still running. I'm inclined to hope for something between the two alternatives of the frontier or a planned society where, to use the classic example, a feller can still fell a tree on his property, cut it up into lumber, and build a shed, all without interference, permit, or permission. That country isn't the United States anymore, alas, and perhaps except for the frontier never was.

That doesn't mean one can't do it anyway. It may be that the last thread of real human freedom is the inability of the regulators to catch you. I'd prefer something a bit more solidified by law but I'll take what I can get. Law, even ostensibly self-limited law, is power, and power is eventually and inevitably corrupt. We are lucky to have hung on to those shreds of the Constitution remaining to us for as long as we have. The ones that do remain seem to me to deal with the government's ability to rule and to expand that rule; the ones that were a brake on that expansion (say, the Second, Fourth, and Fifth amendments) are the ones most assiduously flaunted.

Enough of this. I'm off to find something suitably improper to do. Because I still can. ;-)