Martial law? What the hell, do you think this is Poland in the 80s? Supreme pessimism and willful denial of reality in that statement astounds me.
Martial Law would never be declared. There would be no need to. Here's the definition.
Martial Law - the body of law imposed by the military over civilian affairs (usually in time of war or civil crisis); overrides civil law
The idea behind Martial Law is that you can take away more of the people's freedom and rights temporarily while the country is at war.
The rights and freedoms they would normally take away during martial law are already gone. We no longer have rights in this country, it's just that most people don't know it yet because they haven't been in the way of something the government wanted.
If you think this is pessimism, it's not. I have looked up the specific laws and judicial decisions that have nullified our rights. In fact I stopped because there were a number of overlapping laws that nullified our rights.
Just because you haven't seen tanks and goose stepping troops going down main street doesn't mean that you live in a free country. That's what throws everybody off. They keep waiting for something really brick in the head, I coulda had a V8 obvious to happen where they will say Okay NOW we live in a fascist state.
Meanwhile our freedoms have trickled away 'til there are none left. We lost our rights a number of years ago. The only difference is that back then the government had to jump through a lot of hoops before they could take your rights away. Over time, and especially after 911, they removed all the hoops with the Patriot Act, The Real ID Act, The soon to be enacted Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act,and still more that I don't have the name of right now.
But to call someone pessimistic for believing marshal law may happen is ignorant. The Patriot Act IS marshal law. That's why the first version had a "sunset clause" in it.
The government may be dumb, but it's smart enough to know that if they want Marshal law, it's better not to declare it, because you would then be declaring you have taken their rights away, and they would expect marshal law to end at some point.