Taken the wrong way then. I prefer freedom but a moderation of both cannot exist without some group coplaining one way or the other. I do not think that anything that is done is good enough for some people so a happy medium must be found. I agree that freedom is important but safety is also as we live in different times. To weigh one against the other is very hard to do and the scales will never balance. I am satisfied right now as Gov. have been overstepping their boundries for years. But it is bafoons like us that keep re-electing these people who make these decisions. I do not feel any less free then what I did 10 years ago. I can still come and go as I please and the Gov. as 10 years ago can still obtain info on me at will if they wanted.
I suggest you focus a little less on how free you "feel" and look a little more closely at what government's actually doing, and where that'll be taking us. When we separated from England, most colonists I think "felt" pretty free. The excesses that we read about today only really affected a small minority of them, and the "intolerable" taxes were actually considerably lower than what people in England had to pay. But it was the patterns they saw that led them to revolt. Of course, today we don't have to "revolt" to set things right, but we do have to wake up a little.
As for "balancing" freedom and safety, I tend to think that they work with each other far more than they work against each other. But in any case, there simply comes a point that when we surrender too much to the government, we lose the ability to decide where the proper "balance" should be. Simply saying, as Rusty does, that if you're not a criminal you shouldn't have to worry about what government does, is nothing but a green light for them to take everything from us.