The more I watch the History Channel....

The more I watch the History Channel.... the more similarities I see between the current administration and corrupt world leaders from the past.

The secrecy, the "My way or the highway" attitude, and the "dirty tricks" as evidenced in this "Plame Affair" (and MANY others).

The other similarity I've noticed is between the far-right evangelical groups trying to control people's lives here in the USA, and [some] of the "far right" religious leaders in the Islamist Fundimentalist community throughout the world.
Talk about your "American Taliban"... I truly believe that if left to their own devices, these American fundamentalists would (and in some cases are currently trying to) create a similar model of government*.

*Islamist ideologies hold that Islam is not only a religion, but also a political system that governs the legal, economic and social imperatives of the state.
(This is an excerpt from Answers / Wikipedia)

I don't believe that's the America our forefathers had in mind, and it'd definitely not an America that I'd want to live in.

I was thinking of the words to the song "My country, 'tis of thee" the other day.
Here's a clipping (again from Answers.com / Wikipedia) with the verses:

The most famous portion of the song is the first verse:

My Country, 'tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside

Let freedom ring.

Three additional verses are widely known:

My native country, thee,

Land of the noble free,

Thy name I love.

I love thy rocks and rills,

Thy woods and templed hills;

My heart with rapture fills

Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,

And ring from all the trees

Sweet freedom's song.

Let mortal tongues awake;

Let all that breathe partake;

Let rocks their silence break,

The sound prolong.

(In one of the original texts, the fifth and sixth lines are transposed and slightly altered, reading: "Let all that breathes partake;/Let mortal tongues awake.")

Our fathers' God, to Thee,

Author of liberty,

To Thee we sing.

Long may our land be bright

With freedom's holy light;

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God, our King!

One verse, crossed out by Smith in original manuscripts, is generally omitted. Originally the third verse, it reads:

No more shall tyrants here

With haughty steps appear

And soldier bands.

No more shall tyrants dread

Above the patriot dead;

No more our blood be shed

By alien hands.