I'm old now. All of my memories past last week are vague. :-)

I too vaguely recall libertarians being lambasted by some on this site as paranoid Paulbots for being opposed to a "Patriot Act" that would never be used against "regular Americans."

If you were complaining about it when the so-called Patriot Act was passed, I would have been in agreement with you then. But if you were against it then, but for it now after seeing it metastasize, then you are a hypocrite and a partisan clown,

Soldiers would be harder to deploy without instantly ramping up the level of civil unrest. A lot of "law and order" sheeple would probably welcome cops busting protester heads in the early stages until they were affected personally.

Soon will come the day when we learn whether America's militarized LEOs will follow the Constitution or their government paymasters.

Does an IED that explodes in Afghanistan cause any problems if Americans aren't around to be casualties? Sell foreign Christians guns to defend themselves in Third World toilets. Smart countries use proxies to fight against their enemies. Dumb countries spend their blood and treasure breaking up bar fights around the world between people they don't even like. It really is that simple.

Fascism is what you get when Americans view their country more as the geographical land mass which they occupy rather than a noble experiment conceived in Liberty and a government that should be of, by and for the people.

If I die a free man, perhaps my children can have a shot at living in the freedom that we formerly enjoyed. Is your life so precious that it's worth living as a slave or in a police state? Each time the government oversteps its previous bounds, it sets a precedent for the "new normal" that we all just seem to tolerate and don't mind paying for with ever increasing taxes, national debt and loss of the liberty that was once a birthright of Americans.

Texas has sure changed since I left. Back in the 90s, I rode my bicycle with a Ruger slung across my back from the gun smith to my home in Beaumont. Other than automobile drivers giving me a little more respect and a wider berth than normal, I completed the ride without incident or interference. I wasn't even in a rural setting. Beaumont was a small city of about 100,000 souls at the time. If Texas LEOs are now behaving in such a manner, I foresee few allies in law enforcement when the 2nd Amendment is suspended for national security reasons and tyranny clamps down on America.

Superman, I think that you missed Paulus' point. The people who want to make the world "safe for democracy" are former liberals who masquerade as conservatives aka neocons in order to fulfill their globalist utopian dreams through Wilsonian style interventionism..