"The American people have lost their ability to think, reason, question, do math, control their urges..."
Just stop right there! Going any further is redundant and expecting any kind of rational behavior beyond this point is foolish!
..."Federal government has treated citizens like suspects since...well before...2001!"
Moving on...
"Authoritarian regimes treat everyone like a potential enemy."
We will find out how that works out for them in the end...
"...the thought of civil war in the United States is inconceivable."
Bullsh*t! I think the great unwashed might think that way, or foolishly think government will always be there to protect them, feed, them, shelter them and wipe their ass...but the oligarchs and bureaucrats foisting this charade know better, they will cut and run and hide in taxpayer funded bunkers and ships and what have you and expect to ride out the chaos in peace. The latter they may do, for a time, but they have to emerge sometime, and when they do, people who remember them will slaughter them on sight, their very elitist and self-absorbed natures will expose them faster than if their faces were plastered on every ruin with a wall still standing!
Secession to me is the only option left that peacefully separates people into different, two as a minimum, perhaps more states, if PaulBots want their own Xenophobic state, and perhaps the greens want Oregon or some such paradise to live like naked savages, etc. It won't guarantee permanent peace, for sure the greens won't last long on their own before the locusts invade their communes and settlements and rape them for everything they have, then, they'll turn their mindless ravenous hoard on others. Then they'll have to be slaughtered on an industrial scale. And assuming all this goes on without foreign meddling (some new states may even court foreign partners for support in return for certain rights) when the dust settles there could be peace to be had. And perhaps the biggest elephant in the room is what to do about everybodys debt and unfunded liabilities etc...it could not possibly be assumed, vast write off's would have to occur, many businesses left destitute, perhaps only a portion of foreign obligations passed on and assumed by the new entities.
Barring that recognition and the will to execute such a partitioning there is nothing but violence coming.
I hope the timing is off too, but things seem to be accelerating out of control. A misnomer I know, things never really were under control, just barely hanging together by a common fear of causing anything else that could be worse than what is already happening...but that avoidance thing has a way of ensuring the rupture inches closer. For sure major precursors to the main event seem to be shaping up.
We all need to be situationally aware, prepared as possible and ready for anything.