Whether at work or at play, Americans — except, of course, for those under orders or in confinement — do what they want, when they want, where they want (so long as the “where” is not privately owned by someone else). Remarkable what we and the generations before us have built.

Even though this ordered freedom took so long to build, it is also very, very fragile. That’s in part because the world has produced such genuinely evil forces and such monstrous weapons of destruction that who knows what the next decade might bring to our shores, much less the next century.

Which is why it is so astonishing that Congress is on the brink of allowing the crucial tools of our security embedded in the Patriot Act to lapse without a replacement. It is beyond reckless. A better word is “insane,” especially considering the nonchalance with which it has happened. It is brinksmanship combined with lassitude.

It is a shameful thing. So many Americans have sacrificed everything to build the country, and D.C. cannot even maintain a thin shield of uninterrupted security, even as the threats grow and multiply.