This paper will probably get me locked away if it gets in the wrong hands, so I will limit its reading to a few close friends who think like I do. I am an American, born in the year 2101 AD. My country still calls itself the “land of the free and the home of the brave”, but that uses “free” in the very loosest of terms. As I remember many of my childhood memories, I am amazed that I didn't see the dark path our country had taken. I am one of the few who have seen it, even as adults. Things have been bad for as long as we could remember. The generations who could remember days before constant surveillance and forced uniformity are all gone now. There are few of us living that are bothered by our country's way of life. It's been this way as long as we can remember. To us, its just the way things are.
Sometimes before I went to bed at night, I would look up at the camera in our living room and pretend that aliens from Mars could see me. I would dance around, make faces, happily ignorant in my own little world. That never bothered me, the fact that there were cameras in our home. They had been there for as long as I could remember. For years, I never thought about where they lead, or who was watching. The first time I wondered about the cameras was an afternoon when I was in the 5th grade. I was in the kitchen, with my mom, making dinner, and I told her about a story I had seen on the news at school. A man was arrested for making treasonous remarks against the President. When I asked her how the police had found out, she said they saw footage from the cameras in the man's home. It struck me that the same cameras that were used as reason to lock someone away were in our own home. For the first time, I realized that I had been right; someone was watching the cameras. Not aliens, like I had pretended, but the police. The government. I later found out that the cameras had started as protection for the people. Before, surveillance had been limited to public places such as restaurants, banks, and the like. However, as the fear of terrorism grew, the government decided that they needed to be able to watch everywhere. When people complained about the cameras in private homes, their arguments were shut down, with the government saying it was for their own protection. I guess people thought it was a fair trade: their privacy for protection against terrorism.
My grandpa used to tell me stories of America back when we were a republic. I wasn't supposed to listen to his stories; Mom and Dad said that they were dangerous, and I should never tell anyone what he said. I would listen anyway. They were just stories. How dangerous could they be? He told me that once, the country was lead by elected representatives and that the people had a say in who ruled. I guess that made sense. I knew we still had elections, but the rules that limited a President's numbers of years in office had long been done away with. Now, the Presidency was for life. Once, Grandpa asked me to tell him who the President was. I proudly spouted off my memorized answer I learned in school: “the President is the supreme ruler of our country. He makes the decisions and tells us what not to do.” I had wondered why he shook his head sadly and told me I was exactly right. The President was the supreme ruler; he held nearly absolute power. Congress had eventually disintegrated, I guess because it wasn't needed anymore. Bills and laws were passed by executive orders. Regulations could be passed in hours, and they were. The more easily laws could be made, the faster the government made them. Everything became controlled by the government: schools, the military, entertainment, the economy.
I didn't go to a big school. Well, to a kid, I guess it was big. At school, my group of friends included nearly everyone. We were taught at an early age that everyone is equal, regardless of age, gender, race, or sexuality. Previous generations had worked hard to erase stereotypes. They had succeeded. For all my life, it never entered my mind that people could be different. Sure, everyone had their own personalities, but not really. We kids all learned the same facts at the same time, lived in similar houses, talked about the newest video gaming system. There was no difference between my family and my friend's family, even though mine consisted of me, my mom and dad, and one sister and his was him and his two dads. One of my acquaintances was even living with her mom, dad, and her dad's husband. None of the stood out to any of us, though. Growing up, with all that equality and synchronization, I struggled to find my individuality. There were no cliques, no divided groups based on common interests or hobbies. In school and out, we wore uniforms. There was nothing you could make unique about yourself, nothing. A school counselor told me, when I was sixteen, to stop trying to find myself: “That sort of thing is just a lie. We didn't need to be anything special; just do what everyone else does. It's not like you could be better than someone else anyway. So don't try.”
One childhood friend of mine had skin darker than my own. One day, she looked down at our arms, compared them, and wondered out loud, “Why do we look different? Why are your arms paler than mine?” A teacher, overhearing the question, ran over and quickly whisked us away from one another. I heard my friend repeat herself, “Why, teacher?” The teacher answered, “What are you talking about? You two aren't different! You're both people, how different can you be?” That was the last time I was allowed to play with my friend. I quickly learned that there were some things you just didn't talk about. Even at home, my parents were careful to avoid certain subjects. I never thought it could, or should, be any different. That was just the way things were.
Every day for twelve years, I was in school from 8 to 16 o'clock. Classes never changed; from first grade till 12th, I attended math, science, American history, reading comprehension, social studies, and Foreign News. I remember, one day in high school, I was researching a paper for school and I ran across an old article from the year 2014. In it, the author Marion Brandy spoke about some proposed renovations to  the nation's method of education. He said in the article:
Common sense says we educate to help learners make better sense of experience—themselves,  others, the world.Those Common Core Standards above say something very different, that we  educate to help learners make more sense of text—words on a page. There’s no   acknowledgement of the myriad other ways humans learn, no apparent recognition of the  inadequacies of text in preparing the young for an unknown future...
I remember thinking, “That's funny... sounds a lot like my school.” I later found out that this Common Core system was the basis for an even more extensive programs known as ASAP: American Superior Academics Program. We kids would make jokes about how we needed to “get out of school ASAP!” The last class of the day, Foreign News, was devoted to watching two hours of news about countries outside of the US. Everyone I knew hated that class. It was terrifying. I remember walking home with images of beheadings, torture, and razed homes in my head. The videos on the news showed us what happened when the people of a country tried to overthrow their governments. Only the aftermath of failed uprising was shown, however. My teachers never said that the government was trying to threaten us, but they did all they could short of yelling in the streets “Death on anyone who revolts against us!”
For years, I never wondered about any of this. After all, Americans were still free! Freedom just held a different meaning years ago. It wasn't until I was in college that I began to try and think for myself. I met someone at my community college, someone who believed things should be different. He spoke of a world where no cameras watched you every second of the day, where you could speak your mind without being locked away, where individuality was allowed and even encouraged. I didn't know what to think. I told him that the government protected us, kept us from dangers like terrorists and insurgents. I remember he laughed, looked straight at the nearest camera , and said, “Just watch. They'll take me away now. Just like all the others who have tried to stand against them.” I never saw him after that day. According to an internet search of his name, he had been locked away on the grounds of treason against the President and the United States of America. From what the page said, he was a dangerous criminal, responsible for stirring up dissent against the government. They were right about that last part. 
I wish I could have lived in America before all this. Before the cameras, lack of individuality, and absolute rule. I wish I could do something to change it all. But I don't think change is possible, not now. There are too few of us who see that there is even anything wrong.
To most, its just the way things are. The way things are, and will always be.