"Pastor Niemöller spoke for thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that:
when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing;
and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing;
and then the schools,
the press,
the Jews,
and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing.
And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something--but then it was too late."
as quoted here: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/niem.htm
I would trade 1,000 9/11's for all of the rights that the citizens of this country continue to willingly allow to be diluted, made conditional or flat out stripped away. The fact of the matter is this - my outspoken nature and unwillingness to 'go along to get along' will eventually land me on a list of undesirables or "unpeople" in the current trajectory of American governance anyway, but I will be damned twice over if I am going to go along with ANY more of this crap. This far, and no further dammit!
President Obama can either veto the latest atrocity of a Defense bill or he can kiss my ass and hope enough people stay with him to retain power, but my vote is inalienably tied to this issue - either you are a President who defends the rights of the people or you are a corporate lackey and power hungry sell out. There is no gray area here to parse any more. Its all in or all over.