[bulatb]

If you want long-term results, the bottom is the place to do it from. Popular culture and social taboos are pretty much the only way to influence a power structure that's not interested in being influenced.

In 2014, there simply isn't any way a lawmaker or bureaucrat could start a program aimed at punching babies (for example). Legal or not, sensible or not, it would never pass because that's not something you do. Likewise: If people really valued liberty and there was social pressure to support it, there would never be mass spying even if in theory it were legal—because no one would propose it, no one would support it, and no one would associate with anyone who did.