Is the US headed towards a socialist government?

[kandrathe]

If your argument is that "fascism is possible in the US because it is possible anywhere", then I agree with you.

Yes, but the other part is that we are closer today than we were 10, 20 or 200 years ago. Incrementally, we are surrendering the concept upon which our Constitution was founded, based on individual liberty and the assumption that the common man would look after their own problems and prosperity and the State would get the heck out of the way. The Bill of Rights was a promise by the confederation of States that these topics would never be intruded upon by the federation. Now, to look at how they are treated, you'd think that they were a boon given us by the Federal government and when extraordinary times (which seem to be quite often) roll around the central government feels they can also reel in our constitutional rights. Do you think the founders imagined a day when federal agents would whisk away a US or foreign citizens (e.g. Khalid El-Masri) in the dark of night to a prison in another country without any trace of where that person went? Rendition to black sites where prisoners are kept as "ghosts" and torture by proxy are not the kind of nation envisioned by the founders. The CIA was granted permission to use rendition in a presidential directive signed by US President Bill Clinton in 1995.