[lrhot9]

> There is a 0% chance of the US government becoming an oppressive regime, surveillance or not. Those things just don't happen in times of peace and prosperity. No country has ever gone from being an advanced democracy to being a tyrannical regime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic

[anigbrowl]

Weimar Germany was not prosperous or what I would call an advanced democracy. It had five good years, but the 5 years on either side were a mess. I wouldn't say that can't happen here, but it's not a good comparison at all. The US is remarkably stable in historical terms,even when you include the Civil War.

[ImprovedSilence]

>> The US is remarkably stable in historical terms,even when you include the Civil War.

Historical terms? 237 yrs is a relative piss in the bucket as far as historical terms are concerned. Talk to me once they get 800 yrs of stability under their belt.

[dredmorbius]

As others have noted: there are very few countries in the world which have been established as long as the US, with the same governmental structures and (substantially) similar borders.

There are cultures which are older, but many of these have existed under multiple different governments. Nations such as Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Czecheslovakia (since rendered into the states of Slovakia and the Czech Republic), much of the Balkans and Baltic countries, etc., simply didn't exist as national entities at the beginning of the 19th Century. Neither did the states of the Middle East (Ottoman Empire), Africa (colonies, prior to which: native tribal regions not structured as we'd consider modern nations), the Americas, etc.

Yes, you'll find England, Spain, and France in much their modern form dating to ~ 1000 - 1400 AD, but only just.

There are a few modern countries which have occupied much the same area (though with different governmental forms) more or less continuously: Persia/Iran, Vietnam, Japan, and China, with as I recall Vietnam being the oldest as I recall.

But no, "nations" as such really aren't all that permanent.

[anigbrowl]

Most countries have had significant changes in their constitutional configuration over a much shorter timescale than the US, especially when you factor in scale. Your counter-argument is so weak as to constitute an endorsement; the existence of other, even more stable countries does not invalidate my point.