Actually, don't bother because you began losing your liberty before WWI, you lost a whole lot more after WWII and now, in the era of the 'United States of Europe' with the Global Government of the United Nations hovering in the wings merely awaiting its entrance, you have no liberty at all! Instead you have a chimera called democracy, invented by the political class and constantly waived before your eyes in much the same way that pick-pockets distract your attention before pulling your wallet out of your backpocket. Or perhaps a more suitable metaphor would be to imagine that you have been tempted by a lover into indulging in some S&M practices, and as the manacles and handcuffs appear to be made of fluffy, pink fur you agree to be bound, and then discover that the whips and lashes are all too real. That, it seems to me (and to others much more intellectually able than me) seems to be the situation we find ourselves in today.
It may come as a surprise to some of you that there is a choice between liberty and democracy; that one, so to speak, precludes the other. Surely, you might reply, they are more or less the same thing. If that is your response then truly, like an addict, you are utterly lost to the controlling power of your neighbourhood drug dealer! The Founding Fathers of the United States understood exactly and precisely that liberty and democracy are inimicable foes which is why you will find no mention of the word 'democracy' in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States. The framers understood, as we do not, that rule by the majority is inherently dangerous. Thus, in their Bill of Rights the only 'right' they have been granted is the right to trial by jury. The remainder of the 'rights' listed are protections for the citizen against encroachment by their government. Like us 'over here' who relied on English Common Law as our defence against state interference, the Americans enjoyed a little over a century of liberty, and democracy was hogtied by the immensely cunning contradiction of powers written into the Constitution which stopped any one branch of government gaining over another despite so-called 'popular acclaim'.
Then, with grim inevitability, or so it seems in retrospect, along came the 20th century and the Age of the Masses. It was the masses who fought the wars and who were mutilated and killed in their hundreds of millions and with their increased political strength of numbers deployed via universal suffrage they demanded new 'rights' and the political class, seeing their chance, seized the opportunities to pour forth a torrent of benefits which, irrespective of any longterm good or harm they might cause, possessed the inestimable virtue, in the eyes of the political class, of ensuring their re-election. Needless to say, those rare politicians with longer vision and a broader intelligence who saw the inherent dangers were swept aside by the 'popular vote', or, if you prefer an old cliché, the charge of 'the Gaderene swine'!
To all intents and purposes there is today no real organised opposition to democracy. Rule by the majority, or the masses, if you prefer, is well and truly entrenched. The effect, of course, is that there is no longer any real difference between the main political parties, they simply compete to promise ever more benefits without ever explaining that eventually these will have to be paid for. Even when a financial disaster hits the world's economies and nations, like ours, deeply in debt for promises made when times were (allegedly) good, still jib at taking back the 'goodies' bestowed on the masses for fear of electoral punishment. I sense, and perhaps it is merely a flight of fancy on my part, that there is the beginning of an inchoate unease amongst part of the electorate - mostly those who pay through the nose for the political classes to indulge themselves and their clients - who sense the truth that the political class is not divided between Labour/Tory or Republican/Democrat but is, itself, a monolithic entity that considers itself not part of the nation but above and beyond the nation. So attractive are the benefits of being part of this political class that the need for yet bigger, wider and higher forms of government is essential to cater for all those wishing to jump aboard the bandwagon, hence the birth and growth of malignacies like the European Union.
Undoubtedly I shall return to this subject - and whether you consider that a threat or promise I do not know!