I feel exactly like you, only my nightmare began during the early Clinton years. The thing is, the socialists have been destroying our free republic at least since FDR, or per Beck since Woodrow Wilson, some say back to the Civil War.
I have always been a freedom fanatic, but back around 1995 I realized that the socialists, at home and abroad, were destroying our Constitutiona rights at breakneck pace.
Now, I find it impossible to be genuinely happy. When I was ignorant about all this, I was a very happy person. I was happy with what I had and my modest life. Now, I just can’t find happiness.
If I felt like the country was moving toward more personal liberty and less government control and oppression, I would probably be a very happy person. My personal life is pretty good and is satisfying. I am content, but I can’t be happy knowing what lies ahead for future generations of Amerincas.
What grieves me the most is the feeling of inevitable tyranny. I know there are optimistic Conservatives fighting back and hoping to win. I am not one of those. I will fight back, but it is with pessimism, not optimism. I don’t want to be pessimistic about the inevitability of coming US central government tyranny. I have several reasons for being pessimistic.
1) Name one nation that has surrenndered its freedom to tyrants and got their rights back? I can’t name one.
2) Our form of government requires an informed, moral electorate — Judeo Christian in nature — to thrive. Voters are increasingly immoral and uninformed.
3) Children are being completely brainwashed by socialist school teachers.
4) The TV and print media completely controls the disemination of information to those who won’t seek it.
5) Half of Americans pay no taxes and want a free ride, those numbers growing constantly.
6) Huge numbers of immigrants have little or no appreciation for the constitutional rights we have lost, and want the socialist benefits of their former countries.
7) Socialists from outside the USA are pouring resources into insuring the dumbed-down masses embrace socialism and are buying their loyalty with entitlements.
I could probably go on a good long time more if I wanted to.
I think it impossibible I could ever be happy again knowing that my nation is doomed. I don’t want to believe that. I love being picked up by the optimists who want to think that the USA will do something no nation has done in 10,000 years of recorded history — surrender their personal liberty to government totalitarianism and later fought politically or otherwise and successfully restored their lost liberties.
I don’t see it happening and knowing that makes it impossible for me to be “happy” ever again. I experience joy. I can be content. I’m not happy. I will never be happy.
England. Henry VIII and Cromwell.
France. Napoleon and Petain.
Czechoslovakia, Poland, E. Germany, Hungary, Rumania, etc. USSR.
Germany. The Nazis.
Japan.
S. Korea. Rhee.
Greece. Metaxas and the colonels, among others.
Mexico. Various, but most notably Diaz.
Chile. Allende and Pinochet.
Most Latin American countries have gone thru cycles of dictatorship and (sort of) democracy, as have many Asian countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, etc.
Iraq. Saddam.
It's a very long list. Very few countries have a continuous history of freedom as we do. And every old country had to take its liberties, generally by force, from tyrants, because tyrants used to rule everywhere.