What is the common thread in any of these issues?  What can be identified as missing from that time 200 plus years ago when such issues were minimal? Perhaps something the founders of this nation articulated so completely and succinctly in the declaration of independence; a treatise that thumbed its nose at the power of kings, and overwhelming control of individuals as 'subjects'.

We are endowed by our creator "with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

Those endowments. Those gifts.  Those individual rights that trump the parasitic, and soul searing collective control by 'progressively' stylized governments that can give or take at will.  The GOD given standards that must only be defended through mutual compacts that creates the very premise for our limited government.  The basis for true equality and opportunity for all, that has eluded so many other nations as they collapsed into self devouring cesspools of murderous inhumanity over the centuries. The premise that we own something that cannot be taken without violence.

Yet we as a nation are now experiencing our own collapse.  We fall among the rest of the worlds bad examples as we define life to be worthless through on-demand death of our unborn. We enslave our peers through manipulations of our government compact, and we take from those who have suffered responsibly to earn, to enhance the lives of others who are told they need not bother.

The government we allow to be all encompassing in its graciousness and philanthropy, is unable to do so, without first relegating our work efforts to that which it controls.  It cannot rely solely upon our complete and voluntary capitulation to provide the tools of power without the use of coercion and fear of pain. The power of course is dependent on special favor and the total compromise of those divinely provided rights.  Control of one's own property cannot be allowed without tithing or favors to the elected and appointed monarchy at all levels of government. Freedom to associate can be controlled through excessive regulatory schemes and taxation. And particular demographics are taught they are worthless, and their offspring even more so.

The poison of progressivism infects this nation to the point where we have rejected God, his values, and his gifts so fiercely defended in centuries past.  Our essence is tainted by threat and reality of violence that has no moral basis.   The vanity that our governments might have some righteous control over lives and outcomes through planned populations, limiting freedom and confiscation of mans work at the point of a gun is a disease of misguided self importance by its leadership.  What might we expect when we take for granted the very miracle that we are, with cold murderous steel in a physician's hand.   Progressives have taught our killers and takers quite well.