Freedom to fascism in 40 years

Balancing the values of humanity is the glue that holds every successful civilization together. A free people can't live in a society that doesn't balance liberty with equality and order. Without law, there'd be chaos.

But I've long ago run out of patience with those who say freedom doesn't matter and support placing unreasonable limits on personal behavior. We have become a fascist society. That's the most accurate word for it. And we're still fighting against the Patriot Act, of all things!

A small bipartisan group of congresscritters is trying to repeal the totalitarian Patriot Act. In past years, it was mostly Republicans that blocked repeal, but now it's primarily the Democrats. Democrats are accusing Patriot Act opponents of placing the rights of terrorists ahead of their victims, and claiming that the Patriot Act would have prevented 9/11. These claims are baseless.

This is the party I was a member of in college, and again in the late 2010s. Now it's complete and utter crap. Democrats have taken up a hobby that used to be predominantly Republican: openly ridiculing those who properly cite freedom as a defense for their own stances. Back in 2013, Jim Hightower called the Patriot Act a "grotesque, ever-mutating, hydra-headed monstrosity from the Bush-Cheney Little Shop of Horrors" and noted that both major parties were guilty of executing it. But the Democrats have gotten worse at a faster rate since then. Now it's almost automatic for Democrats to attack the motives and character of those who reasonably object to excessive government intrusion.

Democrats today are squealing schoolyard bullies who are even worse than the Republicans have been at their worst. Then again, many Democrats today say they were Republicans until Trump, but - as I said a few weeks ago - that means they were still Republicans under Bush.

This is one of the reasons America has gone from freedom to fascism in 40 years.

With the Patriot Act's repeal being blocked by those who openly scoff at the very notion of freedom, I guess there's not much hope to repeal a similar authoritarian measure from that era: the Real ID Act.