Freedom is wonderful because you can go out and build what you want to see more of in the world. Chances are, if you're missing "third places" in your life, the

Freedom is wonderful because you can go out and build what you want to see more of in the world. Chances are, if you're missing "third places" in your life, then other people are. Or, just as likely, there is a reason you gave it up, and maybe you weren't aware of the trade-offs at the time, and now it's time to correct it. Universities are (somewhat) unique in that they are microcosms, with very central control over a relatively small population. But the public, the world at large, is far more chaotic and free. The problem is, as usual, a fundamentally corrupt justice system that serves only the parochial, low-intelligence, low-curiosity instincts of it's law enforcement officers ("that don't look right. Time to put a stop to it, and if they don't stop I'll beat and arrest them under one of the many pretexts available to me." Lots of things don't look right when your IQ is 90.) Time, of course, is the enemy, since the court defaults to "no". The court is not interested in speeding anything up. Ever. Still, scrappy entrepreneurs hanging a shingle and offering a "third place" for profit are somewhat respected by the establishment. Hence 3rd wave coffee shops with live music, microbreweries, and so on. Otherwise the need to keep a low profile with physical exploration puts a serious damper on real world experimentation, much to the detriment of society as a whole. This is, perhaps, the most positive light in which to see the conservative side of the gun debate: if dying kids isn't enough to motivate gun control, then its also not enough to prevent them from launching rockets or mixing up explosives in their kitchen for fun, or working on cars in their front-yards. At least if they die doing one of those things, they'll die happy. And if they don't die, they'll know something about the world.