I think a lot of it is that there's so much more digital paper trail and so much more stuff is done electronically nowadays you can't as easily stop being a thorn in their side (i.e activist for some cause) without them continuing to treat you like one.
In the 1960s you could decide that you'd done enough and move to a new city across the country and get a fairly fresh start. Now any trivial interaction with "the system" would get you red flagged at every subsequent interaction.
The cops "randomly" stop an acquaintance of mine fairly regularly and give him much more crap ever since one of his kids got a misdemeanor speeding ticket (threshold is 20-over which is typical traffic speed in some places) in that vehicle with those plates.
>think the US is about to rise into the Fourth Reich?
Not literally but people have diverse sets of political beliefs. It's not a stretch to imagine individual groups that are for/against something being persecuted. Imagine how civil rights activists or the pro-socialist hippies would be treated today.
In the 1960s you could decide that you'd done enough and move to a new city across the country and get a fairly fresh start. Now any trivial interaction with "the system" would get you red flagged at every subsequent interaction.
The cops "randomly" stop an acquaintance of mine fairly regularly and give him much more crap ever since one of his kids got a misdemeanor speeding ticket (threshold is 20-over which is typical traffic speed in some places) in that vehicle with those plates.
>think the US is about to rise into the Fourth Reich?
Not literally but people have diverse sets of political beliefs. It's not a stretch to imagine individual groups that are for/against something being persecuted. Imagine how civil rights activists or the pro-socialist hippies would be treated today.