re: Interestingly, and I think importantly, we have forgotten 9/10/01

Republics are just not designed for long term. They only work when a huge portion of people are able to handle their every day lives with limited interference, and unfortunately we haven't been there for a while. 9/11 pushed a lot of the non-big government conservatives into big government to deter terrorism. Once the politicians figured out they could just say terrorism to get the largest group of spending hold outs to enjoy large government, it was effectively over.