How many times have you watched some movie or TV show depicting the villain as extreme governmental control, with severe abuse of innocents as the cause of rebellion? We sit through these horrors, reassuring ourselves that this would never happen in America. Why? Because, we tell ourselves, we would never allow things to deteriorate to such a degree that the level of control and abuse we are witnessing could occur.
Well don't be so sure. How do you think those film scenarios were conceived? Certainly from lively imaginations, but also from history; mankind has a long tradition of cruel, suppressive conduct toward his fellow human beings.