"Most Germans, so far as I could see, did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their splendid culture was being destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work were being regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation ... On the whole, people did not seem to feel that they were being cowed and held down by an unscrupulous tyranny. On the contrary, they appeared to support it with genuine enthusiasm." ― William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years 1930-40
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Where Americans go wrong is in failing to recognize that there's always a catch to such devil's bargains purportedly carried out for the good of all society.
You want free education for your children? The government can take care of it. In exchange for free public schools, however, your children will be molded and indoctrinated into compliant, obedient citizens who reflect the government's values rather than your own.
You want free health care? The government can take care of that, too. In exchange, your medical decisions—how you live and die—will ultimately be determined by corporations to whom you are little more than a line item impacting their profit and loss margins.
You want to be insulated from all things that might cause offense? That's not a problem for the government. Its thought police will use hate crime laws to criminalize speech, thought and actions that may be politically incorrect.
You want a guarantee of safety? Sure, but your local police will also have to be militarized and trained in battlefield tactics, your communities and communications will be subjected to round-the-clock surveillance, and you—the citizenry—will be treated as suspects and enemy combatants.
You want to root out domestic extremism and terrorism? That's just fine. But in the process of identifying and targeting terrorists, the government will have the power to label anyone who disagrees with its policies as an extremist/terrorist and subject them to indefinite detentions.
Are you starting to get the picture?
This is the terrible price—the loss of our freedoms and the enslavement of future generations—that must eventually be paid for the goods and services rendered by a government whose priorities are the acquisition of ever-more power, control and money.
As the old adage warns: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything that you have."
Comment: The cabal in U.S. politics who staged a covert coup on the U.S. after 9/11 have been very successful. But they put the cart ahead of the horse. The only way to ensure a regime that rules based on lies and coercion is to take power fully - and violently. That means successive purges, total destruction of the rule of law, and a totalitarian grip on ideological conformity. Since 9/11, they have certainly moved in that direction by laying the groundwork and carrying out relatively minor precedents, but not enough, not hard enough, and not fast enough. They've been hanging on to the pretense of democracy, but without fully hamstringing its institutions.
The neocon/neolib cabal has been playing a risky game in the process: justifying and using the threat of Islamic terrorism to fulfill their foreign and domestic policy objectives while at the same time creating and using Islamic terrorism for the same purposes. By doing so, they have been partially successful in exploiting the motivations and efforts of Americans who actually believe in the importance of fighting terrorism - but only so long as those individuals remain in the dark about the hidden agenda and the reality of behind-the-scenes support for those very terrorists. A real pathocracy cannot tolerate actual patriots. It must force them into line, or destroy them.
Military and intelligence figures like Mattis, Flynn and Kelly (and they're not the only ones) have seen first-hand the two-faced mendacity of the "crazies in the basement" who have actively created and supported terrorists while pretending to fight those same groups. Unfortunately for the cabal, guys like this still understand the meaning of treason.
It only remains to be seen how far they are willing and able to go in taking those powers back - and how far the traitors will go in order to keep them.