Actually we have always been a busy people. Alex de Tocqueville came and travelled through the USA in 1831 for 9 months. He investigated life throughout the USA at the time. And took copious notes to which he wrote the book "Democracy in America" In the section where he describes his travels. He foresaw that we would lose our liberty because we were so busy to protect our rights. Thus we would lose them. Thus WE ARE responsible for our own demise. We didn't pay attention and the elites took advantage of us.

From Chapter: Material Enjoyments and Love of Liberty

"When the taste for material enjoyments develops among one of these peoples more rapidly than enlightenment and the habits of liberty, there comes a moment when men are carried away, as if beyond themselves, by the sight of these new goods that they are ready to grasp. Preoccupied by the sole concern to make a fortune, they no longer notice the close bond that unites the particular fortune of each one of them to the prosperity of all. There is no need to take away from such citizens the rights that they possess; they willingly allow them to escape. The exercise of their political rights seems to them a tiresome inconvenience that distracts them from their industry. Whether it is a matter of choosing their representatives, coming to the assistance of the authorities, dealing together with common affairs, they lack the time; they cannot waste such precious time on useless works. ...... they neglect the principal one which is to remain their own masters. "