The state pretty much stands for the exact opposite of liberty, wouldn't you say? Whether it's telling you how to live your life, OR — even if not directly doing so — at least underwriting events and people who by their mere action impinges on other people's ability to enjoy liberty.

I do really appreciate the ideal of liberty, but my question mark tends to come up in the context of the above. Perhaps everyone should be totally free to decide what they want and need, but when someone builds a factory upstream from me and I can no longer peacefully fish from my back yard because now the fish is toxic... whose "freedom" gets to be "in charge?"

Of course, that's an extreme example, but the extremes seem to often be where our challenges arise.

Mostly, I just hope this pause will have given people enough of a break to truly think about their action... perhaps a (however small?) renaissance in Critial Thinking!