Once freedom is equated with a certain material standard of living, confiscation becomes the path to liberation.

Liberty is a political firewall that limits the damage government can do to the individual.

Rather than a democracy, we increasingly have an elective dictatorship. People are merely permitted to choose who will violate the laws and the Constitution.

As long as enough people can be frightened, then all people can be ruled. That is how it works in a democratic system and mass fear becomes the ticket to destroy rights across the board.

The only things government can do are regulate and redistribute, prohibit and penalize, confiscate and command. Are these the things that liberty is made of? Somebody else's money and an endless list of Thou Shalt Nots?

Once a person becomes a government dependent, his moral standing to resist the expansion of government power is fatally compromised.

The government's appearing to be a necessary evil does not oblige people to trust it. We face a choice of trusting government or trusting freedom-trusting overlords who have lied and abused their power or trusting individuals to make the most of their own lives.