Will there be playstation? It matters very much that there be playstation.
What I think recent events show is, as you say, how easy this all is. That, in turn, suggests that it's fortunate contingency, rather than any more robust bulwark, that's kept us from going down this road before. It probably came as a surprise everywhere else it happened, too.
Very well said.
what's most disturbing is how many people are unperturbed
I wonder if we can maybe take this a step further and say that the number of people who are not just "unperturbed", but actively supportive of many post-9/11 "security measures" is cause for even greater concern. I hate to sound like a conspiracy nut, but I just can't imagine how this attitude develops other than slow, gradual indoctrination. As far as I can tell, the problem is that those who support the Ashcroftian police state trend simply refuse to believe that their government could ever be fundamentally wrong; in other words, the most extreme notion that falls within the range of consideration for most people is that the government "makes mistakes" and is "corrupt". Calculated malevolence is never even contemplated. This isn't to imply that malevolence is always present, but I would say that dismissing it a priori means that the government always receives the benefit of the doubt in a big-picture sense while specific policies which may or may not be significant are scrutinized intensely. In other words, the tactical picture is analyzed heavily while the strategic picture is almost ignored, because it is assumed to be benevolent.
We can't seem to find the forest- all these trees are in our way....
I say this with affection and concern: you are way past the point of overreaction on this.
Stipulate that the justice department has, of late, been advancing bad, pro-govenrment arguments. Here's the thing: if Bush loses the election, he's going to leave office. Our political structures and our freedoms are doing fine. If a citizen wants to denounce the administration in the most hyperbolic terms, there are no shortage of venues willing to accomodate him. You can even evade campaign finance laws and donate millions of dollars for the express purpose of defeating the president. And the Lakers are down 2-1. It's morning in America!
Do, also, remember this: US society has been far more politically repressive (and unnecessarily so) in past eras. Even for white men: World War I sedition laws were more outrageous than anything Ashcroft is currently capable of doing to us. I would go so far as to say that the US was a fairly repressive society by any reasonable modern standard until the days of the Warren Court. And, of course, the same cant about the US as beacon of liberty existed back in the day.
This is not to minimize the current situation; I would not like to see the US get anywhere near as bad again as it was ninety years ago. It is, rather, to demonstrate that things are not hopeless and there are ways out. In particular, hypocrisy can have its uses. When love of liberty is mostly a slogan, it still exists as a latent force. Every so often, there comes a time when Americans start demanding that it mean something, and that force redevelops teeth. I do hope that we won't have to wait until the fifties or sixties of our century, like it went the last three times.