Then I read your comments further, and saw your reference to the second amendment. 'Okay,' I sez. 'Now he's got my attention.' Some of you FReepers know how to segue one politically sensitive issue into another....very adroitly, I might add.
Sort of on the subject at hand (different state; same homegrown insanity):
I have a friend in our township who designed his own home and had chosen the perfect spot on his twenty-acre tract of woodland upon which to construct it. After all of the preliminary surveying, building permit obtaining, etc. (I don't know the actual specifics regarding what bureaucratic department did him dirty, and it's too late at night to call him for that info :), he was told that he could not place the house on the spot he had chosen (or anywhere within a stone's throw of that ideal location) because what amounted to three (by my personal description) 'puddles' (not even standing water -- simply somewhat 'mushy' areas of ground), the largest being no more than maybe twenty feet in diameter) had been declared 'wetlands' (no doubt by some dolt in the employ of none other than our own EPA).
My parenthesis key is wearing out.
Note: When he purchased the property, he had not intended to relinquish his freedom to do with it as he pleased in favor of supplying a habitat for ducks (or frogs, or salamanders, or snail darters, or the like). Little did he realize that his (of the people, by the people, for the people) government has re-interpreted the Constitution so as to afford ducks (or frogs, or salamanders, or snail darters, or the like) just as many rights (and sometimes more) than (human) taxpayers.
After much teeth-gnashing, and (foolish) visions of perhaps bucking the system in the courts, he simply caved to the powers that be (in this case, not necessarily the decision of a coward, but rather the decision of a realist who had other options at his disposal, and whose time is too valuable to fight the insanity....this go round, at least.)
They've just got to be amazed that they've got this far as it is without being tarred and feathered, then hung.
Can't agree with you there, Mr. Landru. They' are not amazed at all. They are cowards who, if there were the slightest chance of their being the object of a tarring and feathering -- let alone a hanging -- they would cease and desist immediately. (They do not really feel our pain, but they are acutely aware of the potential for their own). They know full well that the chance of a public outcry grows smaller by the day (due, at least in part, to the results of your they've had our kid's minds via the schools for years observation). These are the people who govern, finger to the wind, by polls and frequent measures of political climate. Yes, they have a fixed agenda, but they do not ever attempt to put each incremental piece of it into place until they have mapped out their (generally covert, specific and devious) plan of action, and until the sheep have been suitably prepared for shearing.
Can you tell that it's been a long day and I'm cranky? Pass the eggnog....