and the nation behaves...
in such a way as to depress the confidence of those who have observed it for any length of time and have formerly believed it immune to the impulses of bloodthirsty imperialism that have so reliably brought other national entities to grief over recorded history.
I'm guessing that you were born between 1964 and 1972. I'm telling you that had your parents, the year you were born, been given a description of American civic life as it exists today--the surveillance cameras in public places, the random urinalyses in the workplace as a condition of retaining employment, the credit checks for the purpose of renting a house (believe me, I can well remember when this was done on a handshake)--they would have regarded these elements as components of an Orwellian hell. You take them for granted, and regard further depredations upon our former liberties with phlegmatic equanimity, because you aren't old enough to know better. I'd say that you deserve the oppression that you receive were it not that our lives unfortunately overlap.
cordially,
