It took hundreds of years to develop a government based on natural rights and the freedom of the individual, but only 100 years to destroy it. I am not sure that recounting the history of liberty has any meaning any more. Clearly the only freedom many people want is freedom from responsibility. When you look at the “occupy” crowd, it seems they want to live at someone else’s expense, as do many others in this country. Freedom now just means free stuff. European “socialism” has only worked for as long as it has because of a mostly free market United States. Now that we have fallen into the same trap, former UK PM Margaret Thatcher’s words come to mind: eventually you run out of other people’s money. The new American socialism won’t work at all since there is no large free market country left to prop us up. I only hope there is time to turn things around.