They're never going to stop doing that, unless we have a complete cultural upheaval. They'd get rid of all other government spending, and then try to tax at up to 100%, to continue domestic spying and other basic violations.
In other worlds, in a total collapse, the last sphere of "economic" activity still existing would be the bad stuff run by government thugs.
> can't be effectively reached en masse save via military-industrial-complex controlled mass media channels that dissenting opinions aren't given access to
If you think there's some kind of conspiracy to control the media, the burden of proof is on you. The incompetence and bizarreness you're observing is because our intellectual culture is just that bad.
I mean, intellegent people still learned about the "major" alternative candidates (e.g. from the Libertarians and Greens) in this election. Things are still way better than in the time of pamphlets and horses and stuff.
But yes, I'm with you that it's possibly too late for the US, and I'm open to leaving in the future, even though I actually love it here and wouldn't prefer to live anywhere else.
You say "we", as if in that scenario you'd still be there.
I see no other practical method of getting the US government off the fiber backbones and out of the closets of carriers short of undermining the country's competitive advantage in the world economy, and even that will take dozens of years.
The USA PATRIOT Act was 10 years old in October of 2011. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th amendments are dead and buried, and the only response to new laws further abridging those rights we used to have under them is "lol" (e.g. The Daily Show, Colbert Report).
It's delusional to think that it's going to somehow get better when doing so would require large popular support from people who really don't give a fuck about anything and can't be effectively reached en masse save via military-industrial-complex controlled mass media channels that dissenting opinions aren't given access to (e.g. the most recent series of presidential debates).