How is this even possible, you ask? Simple: humans are ill-equipped to notice things that happen over a long period of time. As a species, our memory is short-lived, and we often fail to share observations, let alone consider them in a logical fashion and arrive at empirically sound conclusions. The short-term world overwhelms us with irrelevant details, compounded by the deliberate misdirection of politicians, media, marketers, and other individuals and groups that don't want us to focus on what's really going on. Important events are quickly buried under a landslide of interesting, but entirely trivial, series of events, such as sports results, the most recent crimes, weather, fashion, the hijinks of some wealthy playboy-artiste, etc. These people and groups fully understand human psychology and know how easily most people can be fooled, confused and/or misdirected with their propaganda and lies, and they take full advantage of that knowledge.
Even comparison is their friend: Americans talk about all the wonderful freedoms they enjoy whilst ignoring the benefits enjoyed by citizens of other countries that have better education, better healthcare, and more. Americans also refuse to acknowledge that we live in a gilded cage. We take a pittance of money while the lion's share goes to a slim minority of the population - many of whom do no real work.
Our liberties, no matter which country we live in, should be guarded carefully and we should be suspicious of anyone who says, in effect, that we should trade off liberties for safety. Every step down the path of safety brings us closer to the tipping point beyond which we start sliding down the slippery slope to enslavement (even if it is disguised with other words).
The truth is that the vast majority of humans serve a small minority who are indifferent to the fate of the masses, and some amongst them work to reduce our liberties because they feel or know that it will aid them in some way.
This is not to say that we haven't gained anything; we have. Women and minorities have gained a great deal of freedom in most countries, and many people in many nations have been relieved the burden of cultural/societal "roles" that stifle and trap. Yet, if you were to take the time to compare what we have now with what our eldest citizens can name as liberties in their youth, you would be surprised...
Again, replace "Americans" with "humans", because this applies to us all.
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