I support the Second Amendment, but...

How many times have you heard that one? Especially as of late. Or "I'm all for freedom of speech, but..." That one's surprisingly popular as well.
If you say you're for freedom and then add "...but,..." then you're not. In truth, when you make a statement and through in a "But" in the middle, whatever you said before the 'but' is bullshit.
"I think you're a great guy, Tom, but I've heard you can be a cunt sometimes." = "Tom, you're a cunt."
"I don't have a problem with black people, but they do cause the majority of crimes." = "Black people cause the majority of crimes and I don't like them."
"I believe in the Second Amendment, but we should ban assault rifles." = "I believe we should ban guns."
"I'm all for freedom of speech, but we shouldn't allow hate speech." = "I want to restrict speech."

Freedom is painful. The movie is mainly filled with Progressive tripe, but Michael Douglas' soliloquy at the end of "American President" has some truth to it.
"America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free"."
What freedom means is suffering the consequences of your failures. If you want to be free to ride your motorcycle without a helmet, then when you wreck and crack your skull, the bills are on you. Your family can't sue the motorcycle company or the city or the state. You're the one responsible for it.
The same for businesses. Right now, we're living through the results of "shared liability, private profits." GM, Citibank, Bank Of America, Solyndra, and probably thousands of others who, thanks to politicians, hoist their failures upon the American taxpayer, but when they make a profit, that's all for them, their unions, etc... FUCK YOU!!! If you want to be free from government regulations (Trust me, these large government connected companies LOVE regulations. They help write them to keep away the competition) then you are solely responsible for the actions of your business.
As a gun owner, you are responsible for the control of that weapon. If someone gets killed because of a 'misfire', "I thought it was unloaded", "It was an accident", it gets stolen, then it's on you. Yes, you can do your best to secure it and these things can happen, but YOU are responsible for it. If it's stolen, then report it as such. Welcome to reality.
But the same goes for the people around us.
If you've agreed to the terms of a drivers license, then you've agreed to be responsible for the rolling mass of death thundering down the road, with you behind the wheel. If you crash into a motorcyclist while texting, you're the asshole and no amount of helmet laws will have cured your stupidity.
If you're continuing to buy the products produced by a company who you feel has shitty business practices (Apple, Bank Of America, Levi Strauss, etc...) then guess who's responsible for that company staying in business? Yup, you guessed it, you're the cocksucker. How's it taste?
I could go on, but hopefully, you get the point.

We (The Collective) have all but agreed that We can't deal with freedom. Sure, there's some of us who understand that our actions have reprecussions and we're ready to deal with that, but the greater populace of the US has determined that it just can't handle their own lives and has turned to The State for care and feeding. It shouldn't come as a surprise as this is the way most of the world has gone and, being an open immigration country (unlike the rest of the world), we get these ideas imported and they begin to fester. It's like my current state, North Carolina. Entry way to The South. However, there's been such an influx of "Northerners" here, fleeing their high-tax, high-regulation states, that the politics are beginning o reflect that. Hell, there's a town down here called "Cary", which the locals refer to as Containment Area for Relocated Yankees. It has higher property taxes than the surrounding communities. There's tons of ordinances restricting business facades, what signs you can have in your yards, etc... Progressives are like cancer, aren't they? They pick a place, attack it, ruin it, move on, do it all over again.

There is a sliver of hope that people are beginning to realize that the chains of The State are heavy and are trying to shrug them off. But if the "Freedom Movement" has any chance of growing, people need to be ready to accept some pain; mainly mental, but there could be some physical hardship. But it's the only way it can happen. If We keep trying to deaden the pain, we'll continue to be asleep and be subservient to The State.