Used to sit in Fort Greene park and wonder where Walt sat.

To the States

Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet – for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk – with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)

--Walt Whitman

We have no freedom and we have no Liberty. We are ruled by petty bureaucrats, each just waiting for a chance to flex their muscles. The courts are corrupt. If you think you stand a chance in front of a judge, well good luck with that.

I read "Road to Serfdom" and there was one thing that stuck with me. He said that you can tell how much freedom there is by the way it looks. Freedom is messy. Places where you can easily start a business will have a hundred little places bustling with activity. Regulated places look like an architect's drawing. Look for photos of your home town and compare them with today's photos. They had liberty and freedom. We do not.