does anyone see a pattern here?

I mean... there are many. When tyranny becomes prevalent in government, strong and independent people will buck the system? When two forces oppose each other, there will always be useful pawns to suffer in their stead? "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely"? "Leaders don't force people to lead, they invite them on a journey"?

Which trend are you wanting to highlight?

well said

"When tyranny becomes prevalent in government, strong and independent people will buck the system". And right now, yes, we are all pawns of our current system. It's a pattern which will eventually lead us to be seriously oppressed by our own government.

I tend to agree with that assessment. It doesn't much help that we make it easy by remaining as gullible and ignorant as possible. The good thing about ignorance and gullibility is that those can be fixed with the application of fact and logic. For those that have crossed fully over into the realm of stupidity and make-believe... they may be too far gone.

absolutely agreed. Far right and far left both are idiots. Far authoritarian and far Libertarian as well. They all have crossed fully into the realm of ignorance. Trump supporters on Jan. 6 are scared of political oppression by the Democrats as they put someone as unfit as BIDEN into the white house, so they caused an uproar. Pretty soon, however, we ALL will have to fight for our freedom (not us specifically, but our descendants), as very clearly, we are heading into the path of an empire. Full government control.

I mean, look at history. Rome and Athens. Both were so-called "Democratic" states, but the democracy didn't last long and tyrants were elected into power through misguided voting by the citizens. This is what I worry about in our own country. It is already happening.