> You're saying, "We should not trust the government because they did things that I didn't agree with in the past". This seems like an unfair standard to hold any person or group of people to.
A better paraphrase would be "We should suspect that the US government will act in a way similar to how it has acted repeatedly over the span of decades."
I think this is a perfectly fair standard, and actually am held to that standard all the time, including professionally. If I had a continual, systemic habit of flaws in my work, for instance, I would be fired.
Your phrasing suggests that these are things that "just happen", instead of a pattern of decades of intentional programs with the same kinds of aims and behaviors.
> But like the GGP post, you're begging the question and assuming that your beliefs are so correct that anyone who disagrees with them must be insincere.
I actually think you're insincere because you're minimizing and denying a pattern of sustained behavior as a few mistakes, rather than an intentional, continuing program.
That insincerity can be directly seen above when you switch from "did things I didn't agree with" to "made mistakes". No one is talking about the US government making mistakes, and decades of intentional programs operated with similar strategies is hardly "making mistakes".
Your entire analogy was insincere and meant to elicit an emotional response.
> If they get out of hand then we, the people, will deal with it.
Will we?
I'm actually very skeptical that we'll deal with it in any meaningful way, and find it much more likely that we'll surrender a great deal of control over the country to an autocratic government with a good social control program, precisely because people like you don't want to sincerely discuss the likelihood of that happening by stages.