Reply #71: I'm with you on this; my pet peeve is when the President is referred to

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as "running the country." No one person runs the U.S., dammit! I explain about the three branches as patiently as I can.

You also can hear people saying things that would tend to indicate that they believe the U.S. is already a police state, and are only angry or surprised to find out it's not: when they express surprise that the states have any power at all, and think they are just conduits for federal power, when they are surprised there is already no national I.D. or shocked than any crime can be committed at all, because apparently the government should have big brother powers to prevent crime - they really think the government is responsible for their safety. They tend to see not problem with a law that can lead to a police state, as long as they are under the perception that it could prevent a single crime.