Many progressive-minded Americans have probably gone through something similar with Obama supporters.
But even when I inform them of some of these the facts, they proceed to defend Obama as having good intentions. They even defend his claim that he has the right to indefinitely detain and even kill US citizens without trial, saying that they trust him to do so only with bad people. Even when I make the obvious point that all these powers that Obama has accrued to himself would also be at the disposal of future administrations, many of them likely to be even worse than the Bush/Cheney duo they so despise, they do not back down. At a recent function someone said, to general approval, that he trusts Obama to use these extraordinary powers wisely and only against the guilty and not against innocent people, in order ‘to keep us safe’. In other words, they were reiterating the entire Bush/Cheney rationale for going to war and restricting civil liberties, the very things that they had condemned just a few years earlier when the Republicans were in power. They sounded just like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and all the other Republicans whom they despise.
This country is nearing totalitarian rule. I see this type of mindset prevalent in many circles, along with the apathetic one that permeates most of America when it comes to politics.
Another major terrorist attack may allow some megalomaniac to assume complete control of the country. And as long as people have their Jersey Shore, American Idol and iPhone they will be okay with it.
Yea, I'm ranting, but this mindset scares and discourages me. And I think it should anyone else interested in keeping their freedoms and civil rights.
