Taking the liberty of pinging some of you to this article:
http://www.sobran.com/articles/tyranny.shtml
How Tyranny Came to America
It's a good read. I wonder why Sobran's not welcome here?
I can agree with the article... up to a certain point.
I agree that the Constitution has been misused, and the federal government has overstepped its boundaries. Schools teach that the Constitution is a piece of paper the founding fathers signed. No one knows much about it. I myself didn't learn anything about it before the internet.
But the article lost me once it started on the Civil War. I can understand the importance of the right of a state to leave the union, but it can't act as a little tyranny within U.S. borders. Everything else in the article, though, was right on the mark, imho.