The United States used to be an example to the world. As a nation it used to take its founding principles seriously. That started changing during the cold war and became most obvious post-9/11.
Did John Adams, founding father, take the founding principles seriously when he signed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798? How about Abraham Lincoln when he suspended habeas corpus or shut down hundreds of newspapers and ordered editors arrested?
The idea that the Constitution was an immaculate instrument forged in a gilded age of freedom, with a decline since then, is wrong. There have been bumps and missteps from the start. And in some areas, like freedom of speech, the right has been strengthened and clarified over years of jurisprudence into something that is more freedom-preserving now compared to when it was declared.
When I was growing up in the eighties in The Netherlands, the US as it was thought to us in class and as we experienced it through its strong cultural influence, was certainly something to aspire to.
Of course, back then there was an obvious common enemy to point at, and the help the US provided to our country during and after WWII was still kind of fresh in the collective memory.
It happened around the time when people thought having one dude called a king telling everyone else what to do was a pretty efficient way to run things fairly. Unfortunately, the "enlightenment" never seemed to progress past a small group of landed oligarchs telling everyone else what to do because they were obviously so much smarter and better, we're certain, after all they had all the stuff.
I think the seeds were planted in the pacific theater. After such a terrible surprise attack, the USA probably feels justified in preventing future attacks by all means possible. Isn't that what national security is all about? Also, cryptanalysis was highly successful in the second world war: the outcomes of many battles were determined by successful interception and decoding of enemy communications. The importance of knowing enemy secrets was proven.
The cold war marked the beginning of global surveillance: the USA and other world powers launched satellites pointed at the Earth in order to constantly watch their enemies. After 9/11, the definition of "enemy" apparently expanded to include a nation's own population. Thus the 21st century is the beginning of total surveillance of all humans on Earth, not just enemy military forces.
Terrorism really is effective. America was not defeated but it a certain way it was destroyed. It abandoned all the principles it stood for in the name of national security.
Americans worked overtime post-9/11 to make sure the terrorists won. We made sure to become so afraid, so terrified in daily life that we were willing to give up our freedoms.
See the patriot act, TSA, DHS, and other nonsense.
The terrorists won the moment we decided to live in fear.
The idea that the Constitution was an immaculate instrument forged in a gilded age of freedom, with a decline since then, is wrong. There have been bumps and missteps from the start. And in some areas, like freedom of speech, the right has been strengthened and clarified over years of jurisprudence into something that is more freedom-preserving now compared to when it was declared.