Like Edmund Burke, we flatter ourselves that we "love a manly, moral, regulated liberty." Especially the manly part. If liberty isn't manly, we want nothing to do with it. There's nothing we disdain more than a sissy liberty, a dandified liberty, a prancing, flitting, perfumed, and mincing liberty. No, we require a liberty that can arm wrestle, drives a customized GTO, and would sooner punch its own teeth out than see "Rent."
As for the moral part, on second thought we part ways with Burke. We want, nay we demand, an immoral liberty, because what good is liberty if you have to keep your pants on? And your nose out of yon pile of white narcotic powder? And be rigorously honest when it comes to figuring out your income taxes?
And come to think of it, we want nothing to do with the regulated part either. We don't know what Burke means exactly by regulated, but it sounds ominous. Like there are going to be laws that curb a man's inalienable right to cross state lines with a hot minor in a not-quite-street-legal automobile while drunk as shit on Jose Cuervo tequila.
Regulations are never good. They've led to no-smoking laws, curbs on drunken driving, and baby seats. Time was your baby could clamber about your moving car to his little heart's content, and even hang out the window like a dog. You could even pack your baby in the trunk. No longer. Now he has to be trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and god forbid should he be able to do as much as move a finger.
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