We wouldn't even recognize our face in the mirror nowadays.
It's been heading that way for a long time...first the Cold War turned us into basically the equal in many ways of the very "evil empire" we were purporting to fight.
Then came 9/11...and the terrorists won. How did they win?
Well, first of all, just read this article.
It's about an author arrested for peaceful conduct while trying to question the police's sketchy, and most likely illegal stifling of legal protests for redress of the government.
See, we always say "They" hate us for our freedoms (and the identity of "them" has changed throughout the years).
Now, if you were "them", and you wanted to hurt us, how would you do it? Well, you could just kill us all. A little expensive, a little out of hand. But that wouldn't really be "beating" us. The Joker doesn't just want to kill Batman. He wants to corrupt him...he wants to turn Batman into everything Batman hates and fears becoming. No, if you were "them", what you'd do is remove the very freedoms you so hate us for having. You'd turn us into the same hateful, suspicious, xenophobic monsters you were.
You couldn't do it from the outside, obviously...even on the inside it might take years. But what if the people wanted to change? What if they wanted to give up their freedoms? Why would they do that? What would make them want to?
Enter 9/11. With one stroke, they scared us enough that we ran to whatever authority there was and said, "HERE! Just make the bad men go away! Make it so I never have to worry about them coming back!" And I hate to throw out an overused Ben Franklin quote, but those who would give up their freedom for a little security...
You get the idea.
That's why a line in the article above rings so haunting, so true, evokes a deep sense of shame in the souls of Americans:
"... my partner and I became exhibit A in a process that I have been warning Americans about since 2007: first they come for the "other" – the "terrorist", the brown person, the Muslim, the outsider; then they come for you – while you are standing on a sidewalk in evening dress, obeying the law."
And we should feel shame. We should feel like idiots. We should feel like we've been duped, we've been had, because we HAVE.
Unfortunately, human beings have always had two reactions to realizing that they've been duped, or even that they've made the wrong decision. They either, 1. Learn from their mistake, and try to correct it or prevent it in the future. Or 2. So ashamed and afraid to admit they were wrong, they press on with their current course and fool themselves into thinking it was the right one.
Unfortunately, it seems that so far, we've been going with number 2.
It was easy...you can't blame us for wanting to be safe. But now it's going beyond that. More and more power is being grabbed. Freedoms are being restricted. Why? To protect the rich. To protect the already powerful.
If further restrictions of our freedoms weren't spawned by this Occupy Wall Street business, something else would have given them an excuse, though. I gotta admit, this can potentially be a good thing. The rich and controlling can be a fantastically powerful source of butthurt, and butthurt, as its name may imply, is only harmful to one party.
So, hopefully, them bullying protesters and throwing their weight around and taunting them and restricting our freedoms of assembly and free speech will incite people to raise some fucking hell and make some real change happen. I'm not advocating armed revolt, but I'm not ruling it out either. I just hope it doesn't come to that. I hope things don't get that bad, but history's taught us that when they come for our freedoms, they'll not stop at one. Americans are all full of "OO-RAH" for when other countries throw off their shackles. If it becomes necessary to throw off our own the same way, I can only hope we will be as enthusiastic about our own revolution, and guide it towards a more enlightened endgame from our perspective, knowledge, and experience as a first-world-power.
But this is America, after all...and that sounds like a lot of work.
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