May 17, 2007 04:09 PM UTC

Contra CAR: "I Left Communism. It Followed Me."

• 1 Comments
• by: riogrande

Clearly, you have no problem with concentration camps, so long as they contain only Jews, Herr CAR?

“Those who would deny liberty to others, deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God, will not long retain it.”
— Abraham Lincoln

Rendition.  Waterboarding.  Designer law, written by judges from the bench for one and only one set of litigants, that bears no relationship whatsoever to the official published law.  Governmental tort immunity, which means our “public servants” can do anything they want to you without personal consequence.  Prosecutorial discretion, which means that our public officials need not fear criminal prosecution for the crimes they commit.  Our government is free to break into our houses, rummage through our personal papers, eavesdrop on private conversations, and use GPS tracking devices to follow our every move.  We can boast the largest per capita prison population of any country in the civilized world, and have laws so vague that anyone can be ensnared by them.  Citizens are routinely persecuted for their speech, both directly and (as I was) indirectly.  A controlled corporate press (admittedly, closer to fascism than communism).

As one of my friends who escaped Poland in the ’70s told me: “I left communism.  It followed me.”  We don’t live as free men and we all know it, but few are candid enough to admit it.  Remember this classic protest strain?

“Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
— Buffalo Springfield, “For What It’s Worth”

We all live in fear of “the Man,” (unless of course, you happen to be “the Man”).

Please tell me CAR, how we are, in any material way, different from the Soviet Union.  “We got Baywatch?”  If you’re not thoroughly appalled, you aren’t paying attention.

The inherent human freedoms with which mankind is endowed are [as John Adams rightly put it] `antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.'”  Colorado Anti-Discrimination Commission v. J. L. Case, 151 Colo. 235, 244, 380 P.2d 34 (Colo. 1962) (quotation unattributed in the opinion itself; the apparent source is John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765).