Shit, simple firecrackers are banned in alot of places. Exactly what freedom are we celebrating?
1. The freedom not to have too much cash on you or you might be considered a drug dealer and have it taken. To get your money back, you need to go to court to "prove" where you got it....and still not get it back. Asset forfeiture is freeedom????
2. The freedom to have the government decide which drugs you can put in your own body....even if those drugs make your live easier (i.e. marijuana for cancer patients).
3. The freedom to be in pain because your doctor is too scared of the DEA to prescribe you painkillers.
4. The freedom not to use your cellular phone in your car (i.e NY state)
5. The freedom to have private companies take photos of your car when you are supposedly speeding, send you a ticket in the mail, and divide up the profit between the company and the state. (i.e lockheed-martin and photo radar)
6. The freedom to ride a bycycle without a helmet and get fined.
7. The freedom to not wear a seat belt and get fined.
8. The freedom to buy cigarettes with a 200% tax applied.
9. The freedom to be raided in the middle of the night with a "no-knock" search.....and to have the identity of your accuser kept secret.
10. The freedom to pay entrance fees to national parks that are supposed to be paid for by the 40% in taxs you shell out each year.
11. The freedom to drive 65mph on an empty interstate that can handle 90mph.
12. The freedom to have lanes on the interstate that you can not drive on because you dont have two other idiots in the car.
13. The freedom to bring a cell phone to school and be arrested.
14.etc
15.etc.
About the only freedom that you have in this country that you don't have in most places in the world is the ability to buy/carry SOME guns. That freedom is different from state to state....and is diminishing every year.
Sorry for the long post with numerous misspelled words. It is just frustrating to witness the loss of freedom and privacy that has happend in the last 20 years. When I was a kid, I had my first rifle at age 13 and would go out hunting unsupervised. One of my uncles would let me borrow his pistol to shoot unsupervised at that age as well as it was no big deal. Today, my uncle would be a felon for letting me use his pistol unsupervised to shoot tin cans.
This is why I don't know if I want to have kids. I mean, the schools are pretty much Orwelian nightmares of surveilance and oppression....in some schools even "talking" about guns will get you suspended and as discussed in another thread, "smelling" like cigarette smoke could get you suspended in one school in this land of the free. Some schools are demanding pee tests for drugs and will call the police if you are found with an ASPIRIN in your possession.
Dam, it's the fourth of july and it's against the law to set off a damn firecracker where I live. Land of the free my ass.