Freedom? Mine has been consistently disappearing throughout my lifetime, and I'm a great-grandpa six times over.
Whether through the major intrusions of the Federal Government, environmental regulations which say where and when I can cut a tree down, or the proliferation of agencies and regulations to mind my business ad infinitum, my freedom has been stripped, one thin shred at a time for "the public good", to "make us safe", and to fight a wide variety of boogeymen.
It isn't that I'm crossing borders illegally, poisoning rivers, or destroying America's youth with depravity or chemical dependence, but the measures to fight those things (generally ineffectively) impact my day-to-day life in ways perhaps unintended by the authors of the legislation.
Why do I say "perhaps unintended"?
Because government is FORCE. It is CONTROL, and the more government you have, the more CONTROL--yet the measures, the laws against the things the additional laws and agencies were supposed to control were there, and were adequate to address the situation without infringing on my fundamental Rights long ago, so the only impact increasing the power of Government has had is to infringe my Rights and gather more power to government(--at the expense of Our Liberty--for only those who are upright care what the law is, thieves, brigands, and others do not).
For example, The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1898 not only provided for the punishment of those polluting, the person who brought the charges was entitled to half of the fine.
If you fouled you water or your fields, you got sick or died for your troubles.
Keep in mind that I write from the perspective of someone whose ancestors were here long before there was a United States, when people suffered the natural consequences of their actions: Be slothful and starve, rob/rape your neighbors and get killed for it, abuse your family and live with their undying enmity and no 'social safety net' to mollycoddle you--ever.
You reaped what you had sowed.
I'd gladly take that over being dragged down by swarms of Lilliputian pencil-necks whose entire raison d'etre is to further their power at the expense of the productive by regulating obscure minutiae.
Yet there are those who, even now, see the monster from a different view. They suckle and nurture at the teats of the beast that devours the rest of us to provide their sustenance. And those whelps are voting on who is for dinner.
When there is nothing left, that wolf will consume its own get to survive, but for now, they grow fat at our expense.
Note that all the problems these agencies and laws were supposed to solve are still there.
Many problems are worse, and the opportunity for corruption only increases with the number of edicts and prohibitions and the scope thereof.
Every solution proffered diminishes our Liberty, but does nothing to solve the problem.
We have known there was an Illegal Immigration problem since Eisenhower had "Operation Wetback", and yet we have done nothing effective at the Federal Level since to stop it in over half a century.
We fund and provide incentive for the violation of our border by making the contraband (other than humans) which comes across valuable by prohibiting it.
(The humans we give food, housing, and medical care rivalling that of our citizens.) We've had laws controlling drugs since Prohibition, and the problem has only grown.
We even provide housing, EBT cards, and 'disability' payments for the addicted.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Keep pushing that button, maybe the results will be different next time.
Excellent post.