Even before America became a country, Americans had a habit of freaking out about minor violations of abstract principles.

"In other countries, the people ... judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance," observed Edmund Burke, the great British statesman and philosopher, in 1775. But in America, "they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze."

America's obsession with slippery slopes used to frustrate me. I support gun rights, but bans on machine guns or bump stocks do not overly trouble me. I'm a passionate defender of parental rights, but child abuse is intolerable. I think political speech is inviolate, but o

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