a bad trade

vodkapundit:

The Federal government has laws on the books and regulations in the registry for just about everything, except for the “just about.” And we’ve seen what happens when “everything is a crime” or when permission must be obtained before being allowed just to politic.

“Being allowed to politic.” There’s a phrase that would have driven our Founders to take up arms. After a few minutes spent weeping in sorrow for a once-free people, that is.

We used to petition our government for redress of grievances, but that’s become difficult-to-impossible under a politicized and partisan IRS following through on “suggestions” from on high.

We used to vote the bastards out when they got too big for their britches, but the permanent campaign, enabled by MSM hacks, has set that bar higher than ever. Our intelligence agencies listen in on pretty much whatever they want, without so much as a how-do-you-do. What do they do with it all? Nothing innocuous — they assure us. Even our nation’s top bodyguards are knee-deep into drugs and hookers.

So what do people do? What can we do?

... A government with the legal authority to listen to anything and classify everything, is a government that has lost any kind of legal restrictions on its behavior.

We’ve traded a lot of liberty for zero security.

When a state becomes this big and this lawless, it usually means a long period of stagnation... those elections seem to mean less and less, and the security apparatus keeps getting bigger and more intrusive. Better armed, too.

It’s not too late. But the clock is ticking.

that site also has a chart you should see