Passing the Patriot Act must've been the most anti-patriotic thing the US has ever done. It destroyed Americans' beliefs about what it means to be American, and it also destroyed the foreigners' belief and hopes about America, too.

As a non-American, that's how I see it, and that's why I was hoping Ron Paul became president, because I knew he was probably your only hope to keep America what it used to be, and revert this awful trend of the government killing every American value and the American Constitution.

The worst thing about "tyranny" or anything similar, is not the tyrant himself. That's the easy part, because he can at least be removed. But what do you do with the destroyed culture? The culture that you have free speech and rights to privacy, and the culture that authorities need to respect the spirit of the law, not just the letter (while always seeking loopholes, so they can still "respect" the letter of the law, but do whatever they want. And what do you do with all the millions upon millions of people that believe in the "new" culture, of spying on everyone, and so on?

Once the culture is changed, it takes decades to bring it back.