How the United States Has Changed, Ctd

At no point in the films is there any suggestion that one ought to put an abstract ideological or ethical commitment above a specific obligation to family.
Sociologically speaking, this is a classic moral outlook of a low-trust society . . .  - Matthew Yglesias

The Loyal Opposition: "a minority party esp. in a legislative body whose opposition to the party in power is constructive, responsible, and bounded by loyalty to fundamental interests" - Merriam-Webster Online

"The country I stayed in was a different America, a long time ago" - Daniel Ellsberg

"A fear society of arbitrary, disproportionate punishment" - "You Have a Monstrous Ideology": How the United States Has Changed

[They're] capable of anything. - Very Hard Choices, Spider Robinson

We might die to preserve our nation's principles but most of us won't kill our country to win an argument. - James C. Moore

A country once guided by exalted principles is now tainted by cruel ones. - Dahlia Lithwick

Now old inhibitions have given way. Things that weren’t done suddenly are done. - David Frum

From Spider Robinson's SF novel Very Hard Choices:

[Spider, born in the US, who now lives in Canada]: I live in a civilized country instead of America. p. 8

The United States of America has the most magnificent of ideals any nation ever failed to live to live up to. p. 125

In this, one of his later novels, Spider Robinson uncharacteristically inserts a discussion of recent developments in American life, viewed from the standpoint of ethics and decency:

"If this account is ... accurate ... then all three of you are unusually ethical people," p. 180 spoken by a character who until then had seemed to be a master criminal. "Ethics of that order [are rare.]" p. 182 “Who's the most ethical human being in the firm? . . . I think they are . . . one hundred percent honest and utterly fearless.” p. 183 “The Constitution and Bill of Rights are among the most enlightened political documents the human race has produced so far, and its people are, so help me, some of the kindest who have yet walked the earth. . . . So far nobody's ever been as ashamed of their own racism as we are.” p. 187 “. . . people of good will and good sense seem helpless to do anything about it.” p. 188 A few pages later he says the U.S. "didn't dismantle its own Constitution and Bill of Rights and the Geneva Convention and its own image of itself without help. ... All my life, if there was anything everyone in America knew for sure, without even thinking about it, it was that John Wayne would never beat up a little guy. ... The America he knew is gone." p. 189

The kind of people I'm talking about [...are] just very rich. ... They're not impressed by political power, popularity, or viciousness. They use people like those as chess-pieces--pawns. They've got handles on them all. They themselves are off the radar. They don't think of themselves as Americans. They don't even think in terms of nations or ideologies or the improvement of mankind; they are fundamentally indifferent to all suffering and death except insofar as it affects their game. ... The tools they have now are finally good enough to completely subvert democracy. ... Vandals ... absolutely selfish, utterly contemptuous of all morality and ethics. pp. 189-190

[They're] capable of anything. p. 191

All they were doing was treating each other with courtesy and common sense. ... What made me mad was, people used to treat each other that way in America when I was a boy. p. 197

. . . the hijacking and corruption of the United States. p. 200

Knowledge and reason and kindness and personal liberty really are worth all the dreadful effort they cost. p. 205

In "You Have a Monstrous Ideology": How the United States Has Changed, we recounted Daniel Ellsberg's reflection on his part in the Pentagon Papers exposure of concealed information. The justice system of that time took a lenient, freedom-of-speech approach to what he had done. A public-spirited citizen described today's changed situation:

John Cusack at The Guardian isn't sure Eric Holder will protect journalists. Cusack (yes, the actor from Say Anything) argues that David Miranda's recent detainment in the U.K. "was an assault on press freedom that should make every reporter shudder no matter their opinion on the NSA." He asks, will the U.S. act similarly when NSA journalists try to enter the States? He wonders if Americans should now "conclude that the U.S. is willing to create a generation of exiled watchdogs, who are trying to hold their government accountable from afar." Glenn Greenwald recommended the piece, as did Jason Leopold, an Al Jazeera reporter who covers civil liberties.

James C. Moore described an underlying degradation of decency in those who govern:

We had a process. Congress proposed, and the president disposed with his signature. A law then went on the books. Courts might be asked to test its constitutionality, but by surviving legal challenges, a measure became the settled law of the land, which was the case with Obamacare. The American legislative system was, in spite of the disturbing influence of big money, actually quite elegant. But now it is broken.

We have entered into an era of gunpoint government.

Americans have discovered that a tiny, radical minority can immobilize their entire country and hold it as still as a robbery victim staring at the barrel of a pointed gun. And regardless of how this might anger the majority, they must live with the fact that it can happen again. ...

Political accommodation for the common good is not even a consideration. Shutting the country down is the only objective, with no purpose beyond political destruction and personal ambition. ...

[Cruz's] ideological strain thrives on the notion that government should do little more than protect the borders, pave the roads and then get the hell out of our way. ...

We might die to preserve our nation's principles but most of us won't kill our country to win an argument. ...

He was willing to jeopardize the lives and incomes of millions of Americans, along with global economies. ...

Our deliberative government was not designed to be hijacked by a few dissidents. But fanatics have found a way to pry open the cockpit door and demand course corrections that put everyone on board at risk.

Aphorisms and observations which may apply:

Those who violate the bounds of propriety counting on the reluctance of more decent people to stoop to their level to protect them.

A willingness to fight in territory where conscience forbids most others.

David Frum - Theoretically, the party that holds the Senate could refuse to confirm any Cabinet nominees of a president of the other party. Yet until recently, this just “wasn’t done.” In fact, quite a lot of things that theoretically could be done just “weren’t done.” Now old inhibitions have given way. Things that weren’t done suddenly are done.

James Fallows: Liberal democracies like ours depend on rules but also on norms -- on the assumption that you'll go so far, but no further, to advance your political ends. The norms imply some loyalty to the system as a whole that outweighs your immediate partisan interest.