chapotraphouse

Remember that time... when after 9/11... George "Hitler" Bush and Richard "Himmler" Cheney pushed through a bunch of insanely overreaching legislation, executive orders, and got SCOTUS to rubber stamp basically all of it. I remember being told as a teen in those subsequent years into the Iraq War era, that while time period, that those laws that created or beefed up the most powerful intelligence agencies/federal law enforcement agencies ever at the time, and still, were "required" for the moment. We're at war! Once Himmler gasses all the terrorists, we'll just, you know, do that thing which oppressive governments are famous for doing and simply relinquish power, stop the mass spying, the oppression of non-state dept friendly ideas/actions, etc.

What actually happened, as everyone including a (very stupid, but not that stupid maybe) 15-16 or so year old me, said was gonna happen. The laws remained, the provisions they promised were only for "dirty foreign terrorists" became increasingly for "well, domestic terrorism exists too!" and now, as fully predicted, they're just creating more events, pushing people on the edge (but it's not entrapment because we said so!) to do unhinged shit, all to justify the previous laws, which you cannot even question anymore in public discourse btw, good luck if you tried. Fully solidify the past, it was always like that, don't believe those silly cranks who literally lived through that insanity, and btw, we need more funding. More departments with ambiguous names, murky objectives, held accountable only to other federal agencies that will simply say "nothing to see there. Just patriots!"

The right wing used to be against this shit. Ostensively anyway. That old streak of libertarianism that probably would've said like "Yeah I think all these commies deserve to die, but that doesn't mean we need to frame them! If the government can frame them, they'll frame us!" You know, the absolute basic critical thinking required. Well, those guys are totally gone, and now just like "Yeah this is all really fucking bad... bad that isn't being used 100% against commies! Let's just do that!"

Which, one on hand, I can appreciate the sentiment since I would like the power of the US government to also obliterate all the right wing dipshits. But, I also know that 1) isn't happening 2) probably would horribly backfire even if someone tried. That also means that, like it or not, my own mind has slipped from a world where, for example, dissolving the department of homeland security (one of the worst agencies in the US which is packed to capacity with SS units on top of SS units) was a possibility into the current world where that isn't even up for discussion or even much thought at all. Instead the only thought is "How do I point the death cannon at people I hate?"

Matt Christman and many others have spoken on the same basic idea. Nothing unique. Just rather sad when you analyze your past self and present self and realize that while you hold certain ideals somewhere down there, the perception of what is plausible has changed around you, and thus changed you as well.

"Sad!," in the word of a dang Cheeto.