Freedom lies in acting as if there is no barrier ( while still taking care not to get cut on the barbed wire as you come and go. )

I cannot go into specifics, but for many different years in my life, I was acting as if there were no barrier and never got so much as a nick from the barbed wire as I passed it. I flew for hours along back roads below treetops just to stare back at where I went to and got back. But I was not free. I had to watch for those barbed wires, played with timing, and did things that a free man would never think of doing. A free man would not have played the chess game I was playing.

Had the Man ever managed to collar me, only I would have had to pay. (Actually, I did brush up against those barbs lightly but never enough to melt my wax wings, to mix my metaphors. Ref: Icarus)

Should I ever cross a different barrier together with a lover, in spite of the fact that the barrier theoretically protects HER, it inevitably nicks Her, too. As it did in our past crossings.

Could I do this now? Of course. But what are the risks? Risks to me: who gives a sheet? Risks to Her: I would deserve death should I allow Her to get nicked.

Political structures being irrelevant today...

As of September, 2017, Forbes reported Donald Duck Trump's net worth as $3.1 billion (with a "B"). He could give 6 people half a million dollars each and feel it as if he had $1000 in his pocket and gave 6 people 50 cents each.

The last year for total U.S. Defense spending which definite data exists is 2013. In that year, according to the Historical Tables of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2015, that was listed as $610 billion. The Donald now controls things with figures like that. Do you think that my one vote (if I could vote) against the invasion of Canada would stop him from conquering Ottawa? Hell, I can't even get Toronto to remove a stupid useless stop sign in my neighborhood that we all hate.

So, while watching carefully for that one occasional cruiser that sits and watches cars go by, I go by. Because only I would be nicked by his barbs. (It's called failing to obey a stop sign. Yup, he was hiding better than I was looking.)

Is that concept distasteful to the LACs (Law Abiding Citizens)? Consider the famous events in Boston on December 16, 1773.