Liberty Is Dead
Liberty didn’t die in some spectacular coup. We surrendered it incrementally, one reasonable exception, one permit, one court decision, one camera, one sensor, and one fucking compromise at a time. Eventually, you look down and realize there’s almost nothing left in your hands.
The New Fucking Tea
Someone shot up Santa Fe’s shiny new automated enforcement cameras, and apparently an old friend’s first thought was to ask whether it was me. It wasn’t. But his question got me thinking about cameras, government power, consent of the governed, and what happens when “public property” stops feeling like it belongs to the fucking public.
Fifty-One Fucking Percent
The government can stop me, detain me, accuse me of wrongdoing, drag me into court, and seek money from me; and apparently “more likely than not” is enough. Maybe that’s legally sufficient. I’m increasingly unconvinced that legally sufficient and just are the same fucking thing.
Stand the Fuck By
I’m sitting at home instead of going to work because today I have to defend myself against an allegation made by the government. We’ve become so accustomed to traffic stops that we rarely stop to consider what they actually are: temporary government detention.
Justice for Whom?
Santa Fe can find the money, technology, and political will for speed cameras and noise sensors, yet when a driver made a U-turn across my path and nearly killed me, the system somehow couldn’t manage basic accountability. So I keep coming back to one question: Who the fuck is the victim?
Borrowed Thoughts
Most people don’t actually think about politics anymore. They consume it, repeat it, and then congratulate themselves for being the only sane people left in the country. The problem isn’t just borrowed opinions. It’s what happens next: people stop questioning authority, confuse legality with morality, and trade away liberty one camera, one regulation, and one “common-sense” restriction at a time.
Freedom at 75-Ish Miles Per Hour
A speed camera might look like a harmless tool for safer roads, but automated enforcement represents something much larger. It replaces judgment with machinery, due process with bureaucracy, and liberty with convenience. Government rarely takes freedom in one dramatic act. It takes it one camera, one database, and one automated citation at a time.
What the Actual Fuck
What would the Founding Fathers think if they woke up in modern America? Would they recognize the nation they fought to create, or would they wonder how a people born in liberty became so comfortable asking permission? This Independence Day, I found myself asking a question that refuses to leave me alone.
I Have to Be at Work in the Morning
I have to be at work in the morning. I don’t have time to take a weekday off to remind legislators to get the hell off my Constitution. Yet somehow, I’m expected to defend my rights every single year from people who don’t understand them.
America Has a Freedom Problem (And We’re Yelling at the Wrong Things)
America has an anger problem. Not because we lack things to be angry about, but because we keep choosing the wrong ones.
Instead of confronting the slow erosion of individual liberty, we rage at abstractions: imaginary kings, trendy villains, and half-understood claims like “AI wastes water.” Meanwhile, the real machinery that limits freedom hums along quietly in the background, unchallenged and largely unnoticed.
This isn’t activism. It’s distraction.