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by blooalien 392 days ago
> I tell my kids this isn't normal, this isn't what the US used to be like, but they don't know any different, so to them giving up just a little bit of this (like we did with the Patriot Act) isn't a big deal.

That's why books like "1984" used to be required reading in grade-school Literature class (fully supported policy by the History and Civics class teachers), and the "messier" bits of our nation's history were taught openly as "mistakes to be learned from so that we never repeat them" way back when I was a kid and dinosaurs still roamed the Earth...

The idea was (as one teacher explained to me) that we would learn the dangers to watch out for, and as good little patriots, we'd always be ready to defend the freedoms of our great nation whether threatened from without or within.