Freedom no longer means what it once did.

Not only do we no longer have dominion over our bodies, our families, our property, and our lives, but the government continues to chip away at what few rights we still have to speak freely and think for ourselves.

If the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.

Protest laws, contempt-of-cop charges, and all of the other bogus violations used by cops and prosecutors to muzzle discontent and discourage anyone from challenging government authority are intended to send a strong message that in the American police state, you’re either part of the herd, marching in lockstep with the government’s dictates, or you’re a pariah, a suspect, a criminal, a troublemaker, a terrorist, a radical, a revolutionary.

Yet by muzzling the citizenry, by removing the constitutional steam-valves that allow people to speak their minds, air their grievances, and contribute to a larger dialogue that hopefully results in a more just world, the government is creating a climate in which violence becomes inevitable.

When there is no steam valve — when there is no one to hear what the people have to say, because government representatives have removed themselves so far from their constituents — then frustration builds, anger grows, and people become more volatile and desperate to force a conversation.

As John F Kennedy warned in March 1962, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”