Yes, I think Eastern European populations are very vigilant about a return to dictatorship, mass surveillance and stuff like that. Plus, they remember how to do mass-protests since the fall of communism wasn't so long ago (~20 years).
I think Thomas Jefferson was spot on when he said that we need some kind of mass rebellion every 20 years just to keep the Governments in check, and remind them that they are there to serve us, not to control us:
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."
Maybe the reason Americans have so blindly fallen for the politicians' lies over the past 10 years and accepted to let them remove their Constitutional rights (or simply ignore them), is because Americans don't really know what it means to lose your liberty, so they don't act as they fade away, until it's really obvious that they have no more liberties (and too late).
I think Thomas Jefferson was spot on when he said that we need some kind of mass rebellion every 20 years just to keep the Governments in check, and remind them that they are there to serve us, not to control us:
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Maybe the reason Americans have so blindly fallen for the politicians' lies over the past 10 years and accepted to let them remove their Constitutional rights (or simply ignore them), is because Americans don't really know what it means to lose your liberty, so they don't act as they fade away, until it's really obvious that they have no more liberties (and too late).