I agree with you to a bigger extent than you realize, but it doesn't follow from your point that we can't seriously consider and intelligently discuss (say) limiting the gun rights of American citizens on the terrorist watch list.
But, yes, I too am afraid of giving government too much power.
When the Bush administration used the threat of terror to create a whole new infrastructure of federal surveillance over American citizens (Patriot Act/Homeland Security), I didn't think these well-intentioned things were going to make us safer. My worry was that we were giving incompetent bureaucrats too much power over our rights to privacy. I saw whole new opportunities for Federal abuse, like when the Bush administration used provisions in the Patriot Act to bring down political enemies like Eliot Spitzer, who merely wrote an unfavorable op-ed about Bush's complicity in the housing meltdown. This is exactly what happened in the old Soviet Union where the government used national security laws to protect itself from the people.
Which is to say, I think you are right to worry about unintended consequences and incrementalism. However, none of these problems make me lose faith in the ability of free Democratic citizens to discuss these issues and solve problems if some kind of consensus can be found. If we thought that all government action and legislation was hopeless, Hitler would never have been stopped and we would have never put a man on the moon - and great Republican Presidents like Eisenhower would never have been able to get the Interstate built so that suppliers/consumers could see an exponential increase in profits/convenience.
Simply throwing up your hands and saying that everything is impossible and everyone is corrupt leaves the hard work to other people.
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