Good question, I'll try an answer:
Personally, when I ask myself this question, "Oh no! How could this be happening to my goverment/society, we are supposed to be better than that"; I simply remind myself of all the terrible moments in past generations -- McCarthyism, American-Japanese Internment Camps, Vietnam, Kennedy Assassination, South American US-Friendly Puppet Dictators -- and tell myself, "Nothing has changed, it's always been like this, its just now with the Internet, you know about it whilst it's happening".
How did your thinking change in the past 10 years when torture, kidnapping, murder, private imprisonment, and restriction of free communications started becoming common practices of our governments?
And to the apologists - political discourse on the internet in less free societies DOES exist - you just don't know how to read any of it.