Yeah I tend toward optimism with most things. I think that 60 years ago I could have made my statements without any “ifs”. That I had to include them is a sad reflection of our society’s decline. That mindset of 60 years is not completely gone in America IMO. I see things as they are but have hope that as a whole America can recover her common sense. Sadly it might take an attack of the scale mentioned on this thread to jar the population out of its stupor.
I am not optomistic when it comes to government. Its tendency is always to exert increasing power and this scenario might give them an excuse to grab more. Whether that would work or not I think depends a great deal the citizen’s reaction to that power grab.
And I agree with your hope that we never have to know for sure.
I tend to think of government (at all levels) as a living organism. It consumes (taxes, man-hours, and energy), it excretes (laws, "administrative regulations", red tape and busywork), it grows (relentlessly larger), and it has a sense of self preservation (every new administration that vows to cut the size of government and bring it under control winds up appointing a blue ribbon committee of 24 distinguished economists and retired judges to study the problem. They in turn hire five administrative assistants each, a brigade of office assistants, researchers by the score, file clerks, &C, &C. They then decide they need a new building to house this fledgling army of the righteous who's only purpose is to trim the size of government. 75 million on the new building and office accouterments and several years later they publish their preliminary report which finds that they could find absolutely no waste or fraud in any government operation.)
Regards,
GtG