Uh, the Nazi regime was built "one step at a time" from what was originally a pretty liberal democracy. BOTH Patriot acts are incredibly dangerous, in that there is no time limit on these expansions of power. Put a five-year sunset clause on ALL of these "additions" to our jurisprudence and I would feel a LOT better about them.
=== Anyone who says this clearly is completely ignorant of both the History of the Nazi regime and the realities of the Partiot Act 2. It is really funny how those who scream loudest in American politics repeatedly demonstrate both their complete ignorance and their hyper partisan political bigotry.
Additionally, they're probabliy totally ignorant of the fact that Nazis oversee our biology texts and -- along with Japs who engaged in human experimentation -- informed our military and became members of our NIH.
As for the police state -- it's decidedly "former Soviet" in profile given the big bucks we're paying the likes of Kalugin (retiring in January), Primakov and our latest gem of a consultant Markus Wolfe, former head of the Stasi in East Germany.
Nice bunch of guys. I'm sure they're the perfect A-Team for overseeing the transformation of Amerika.