Read my .sig some time.
For some reason, there is a portion of the population that wants liberty for themselves and are willing to cooperate with other people. For some reason, there is a portion of the population that wants freedom and are unwilling to cooperate. There are other types of people but it is not necessary to discuss them at this point.
For some reason, when there are groups of humans, there is a need for leadership. The larger the group, the larger the need. For some reason, these leaders always want liberty for themselves.
When leaders who want freedom are willing to cooperate, we see things like the founding of America. When leaders are unwilling to cooperate, we see things like current America, or Russia.
For some reason, in a society where the leaders have freedom but the general population does not, a general consensus will occur amongst the population. When this consensus occurs, protests can result and it may even lead to revolution.
Occupy Wall Street was clearly a consensus. It was successfully broken with an intensive psyops campaign but it was still a clear and unequivocal consensus. The message is clear, the amount of liberty that the general population wants is not even close to what they have. More specifically, the economic shackles are too tight.
With the Snowden revelations, we are seeing some of the tools that are being used to prevent liberty amongst the general population. What is funny is that those tools have been used against the leaders who authorized those tools. That indicates to me that revolution is closer than it ever has been. When the leaders of a group begin to feel their liberty threatened, they will act... and it will be ugly.
That is what we are facing right now.
The federal government actually provides many useful and needed services. As long as these services are being performed adequately, there is still little chance for revolution, despite everything that I said above.
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was a confidence killing event. There can not be many more of those types of failures or revolution will be ignited.
In short, the seeds of revolution have been sown (as they always are). Water has been poured on them (Katrina is an example (cute at that)). The ground has been fertilized (OWS). And finally, the sun is shining (Snowden). What do you think the results will be?
What I want and what you want is irrelevant. We are neither leaders nor significant players. The situation is deeply complex and incredibly subtle in numerous ways, so exact prediction is difficult. I would rather a transition back to the Constitution be a smooth and peaceful affair. Knowing what I know of human nature and knowing what I know of the situation, I am not entirely certain such a transition is possible.