There's outrage about parking meters, violent global conflicts, certain major religions . . . the list goes on. Some of this outrage is justified, and some, arguably, is not.
There is a fine line between "Meh, not sure about that, but I'll allow it", and "I'm outraged! I'm going to vent on talkback radio!" - and I feel we may be crossing that line.
Because of this raging folly, we can overlook the fact we are giving up small freedoms without realising.
This is dangerous because it is small freedoms that make a democracy.
Consider the new service "MyFone" being offered by a New Zealand couple. The service allows mollycoddling parents to monitor their child's cell phone usage, text messages, calls, everything.
This allows the parents to rest assured that their precious offspring aren't being bullied or sent sexually explicit material.
But the child must give up their right to privacy.
You may have heard about the move to ban gang patches in Whanganui.
This law would lessen timid citizens' perception of intimidation with us giving up our right to wear whatever we choose.
If you pass through Los Angeles airport, even in transit, you must submit a full biological signature, including all of your fingerprints to be kept on record in the dark vaults of the American Government in a bid to prevent terrorism.
Even as you wander innocently through the Octagon on a Wednesday afternoon, there are cameras surveying you to pinpoint the perpetrators of theft and bacchanalian revelry.
All of these measures are for our protection, yet all of them require us to sacrifice some small freedom.
I suspect that these measures are more for the temporary peace of mind of a minority than for any real widespread benefit.
Young people are being expected to sacrifice their privacy, just for the personal assurance of their parents.
A founder of MyFone, herself a mother, asks, "What is more important, the civil rights of your children, or their safety and protection?"
What?
Yes it is for their protection, but somewhere, a line must be drawn, because not all parents are trustworthy, and not all know when to stop.
That a young person's civil rights can be brushed aside so easily for the benefit of what is essentially "spying" is frightening.
What the proponents of MyFone often fail to mention is that a parent may, at their discretion, track their child via GPS, even down to their exact address.
Will they still be doing this when their children are 25?
Perhaps I'm just a ukulele-strumming-tree-hugging liberal, but isn't that just fundamentally wrong?
If the gang patches Bill was passed, a girl guide would not be able to walk down the street in uniform selling delicious biscuits and assisting the elderly, to offer those in the community some dubious peace of mind.
And in a bid to inject some sense of community into the upper-middle-class American consciousness, New Zealanders are legally required to submit our biological signatures to the authorities for use at their discretion.
What happened to choice?
For all its promises of idyllic safety, I do not think that's fair!You could argue that safety encourages goodwill and jollity among the vulgar masses, but what has happened to trust?
The more freedoms we flagrantly abandon, the less control we have over our lives in the pursuit of society's utopia.
And there's something so presumptuous about it. Who are we to say what is right and restrict other's rights based on our own social anxieties?
We may well view gang members as drug-pushing, granny-shoving degenerates, but their right to wear whatever clothing they choose is a fundamental human right.
You may not approve of me and my teenage friends loitering obnoxiously in the Octagon on a Saturday evening but that does not justify monitoring us through a camera lens.
While we may gain short relief from our apocalyptic, mollycoddling, post-9/11 hysteria, in this situation I do not think anyone wins.
These sacrifices may seem small but I'll offer you a short lesson in quantitative logic.
That is, counting. A lot of small things make a big thing. If we sacrifice a lot of small freedoms time and time again, that is a lot of freedom.
Freedom which we may never get back
