The street-dancing over the mid-term election results is an illustration of how far we've come down the slippery slope. Americans are again indulging in the national celebration of our birthright immunity to the plagues of humanity.

Through their elected officials the American people have handed their Chief Executive all the tools needed for a military coup. The Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act are a reality whatever political group resides in the White House.

The arrogant scorn for history of which citizens know nothing combined with the blase confidence their leaders, no matter what bottom they are dredged from won't use the powers is the only possible explanation.

Hopefully they'll be right.

This president and the presidents of the future command a mercenary military force with a demonstrated willingness to be used against the US citizenry in essentially civil matters (Waco).

This prez has been relieved of the inhibitions of habeaus corpus.

This prez has been empowered to define sedition and treason. His political enemies can only trust in his reluctance to exercise those powers against his political enemies.

Half-century of presidential wars have acclimated the citizenry to lies of justification, quickly forgotten in the name of patriotic support of troops in the field by presidents of both parties.

Seventy-five years of abdicating freedoms in the name of pragmatism.

A quarter-century of exponential increase in the numbers of police and prisons in the spirit of 'protecting and defending' the citizenry from crimes without victims with the tacit consent of the populace.

We have the camps, the prisons, the laws. All the pieces are carefully in place on the board. What's left no longer depends on the percentage of voters who approve, or disapprove of the decisions of the Chief Executive. What's left only depends on the percentage of Americans wearing uniforms and badges and who carry firearms, support those decisions.

Luckily we live in the US where military coups don't happen.