Well, to the disappointment of many a conspiracy theorist, we made it through September without a rapture, asteroid impact, the ‘Big One’ earthquake, economic collapse, or disclosure of alien intelligence. There is an old saying in business regarding financial projections:   “You’ll be spot on if you give the amount or the date. You only get into trouble when you give both.” The problem with the September projections is that they were too specific and tried to force a timeline. The fact that these events didn’t occur in September does not invalidate some very good trend analysis behind the predictions.

With that in mind, I ran across an interesting analysis as I was reading “Our Occulted History” by Jim Marrs. He pointed out that Hitler had been elected democratically in Germany, and that dictatorship came about through a series of actions designed to undermine the rights of German citizens. The scary part is that the pattern of events appears to be repeating in America. Check it out:

In 1933, Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag, was set on fire in 1933. The German president blamed it on a communist conspiracy. Fear of communism resulted in the passage of The Enabling Act, which set a precedent for the executive branch to act in a legislative capacity. Under the legislative authority of the Enabling Act, Hitler consolidated all police agencies under the pretext of fatherland security. Shortly afterward, civilian possession of firearms was outlawed. And within another short span of time, the citizenry was shouting “Sieg Heil,” literally “Hail Victory” to its new despot.

In the United States, the World Trade Center attacks created fear resulting in the Patriot Act. This act limited civil liberties and provided a mechanism for greater monitoring of U.S. citizens by the government. Then all police agencies were combined under the umbrella of Homeland Security.

Presidents Bush and Obama have all but nullified the power of Congress through the use of Executive Orders. And with increasing emphasis on gun violence, there is a push to curtail second amendment rights.

This begs the questions: Does history repeat itself? Is there a pattern of erosion to civil liberties that invariably leads to oppression?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I have to acknowledge the pattern of events. This gives me great pause. You see, I was personally affected by the attacks on the World Trade Center. In fact, I was a supporter of the Patriot Act on the premise that I didn’t want anyone to have to face the same pain and tragedy my family had just experienced.

But fourteen years later, I’m not so sure. It seems to me that a permanent impairment of civil liberties was an extreme reaction to a very hurtful situation, and could—in the wrong hands—engender a greater harm in the future. And now I find the renewed push to disarm Americans to be disconcerting.

I hope the conspiracy theories are wrong. I hope history won’t repeat itself. But I spend a lot of time in the world of the This Generation Series where governments are manipulated to an undesirable end for their citizens.

The This Generation Series takes a fictional look at post-WWII history with the premise that there is more than chance at work, that there is a cabal of power players who are moving society to a future of their choosing. These interesting ideas combine with intriguing, unforgettable characters for a thought-provoking rollercoaster ride through recent history and into the near future.

Check out Precipice at http://amzn.to/1CQOgpT and Pentecost at http://bitly.com/1G3D3SD.