I have a hard time with the national anthem lately. It seems like a useful tool for an oppressive police state. "If we tell 'em they're free, we don't actually have to let 'em be free!" In this light, the most ironic of song lyrics are those from Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American": "Where at least I know I'm free."
Some people bristle at this. "How are you not free?!" Have I personally been oppressed? Aside from when I went to see Barack Obama in 2010 and had my religious oil confiscated and was told I would be removed from the event if I wasn't supportive, no, nothing else oppressive has happened directly to me. But is that how we measure freedom these days? The folks in the Gulag weren't free, but the rest of the Russians were? It seems to me that a state that oppresses one citizen has removed freedom from all citizens.
So am I free to read the newspaper of my choice? Well, I'm not so sure. This woman isn't. After satisfying the universally-applied security requirements to pass into the secure area of the airport, she was subject to additional screening because of her choice of reading material. This doesn't have to happen to all travelers to curtail the freedom of all travelers.
Unfortunately, most Americans will be unaware of this event, and many of those who find out will discount it because of the source. "If it was real, I would have seen it in [my favored media outlet]." But that's not how media sources work. They are supposed to include a subset of real events, but their subset does not define real events.
Yesterday I read at Marginal Revolution about Americans sentenced to life who had committed no crime. Others are imprisoned for failure to pay fees associated with their unsuccessful prosecution for another crime. So the State wrongly accuses them, removes their liberty during their trials, then bills them for the costs of their improper imprisonment and jails them when they don't pay. I've written before about civil forfeiture. About every six months, without looking for it, I see a news story about an exonerated convict whose jailors refuse to free him, or a seized child whose court-ordered return to his parents is not allowed by the county workers who have, at this point, kidnapped him. Or what about the man whose rifle was confiscated because he was "rudely displaying" it? These didn't happen to me, but do they impact my freedom?
I live in a country where my property can be taken if it's nice enough (civil forfeiture) or if it threatens the State (gun confiscation), where I can be billed for having my freedom removed (like this woman billed for an improper cavity search) and then imprisoned for failure to pay the bill (debtors prison), or even imprisoned when no crime has been committed (as some wrongful conviction cases have shown). I have have my children seized on the strength of anonymous rumors generated by government-funded advertising against fathers holding their daughters' hands. If I am exonerated (although I'm not guilty, exoneration is never a sure thing when the county interrogators plant false memories), the county can keep my children away from me for several more years. I can have all of my telephone and Internet communications monitored and I can be imprisoned on the strength of a false story created to fit the facts (parallel construction). My political views might subject me to harassment by tax officials and law enforcement, or could result in my private information being disclosed illegally (like Obama did to Jack Ryan, Mitt Romney, Christine O'Donnell, and who knows how many others). And what I decide to read can result in law enforcement targeting.
Tell me again how free I am.
None of these things have happened to me (yet). But when you're in a dangerous neighborhood as defined by its murder rate, you don't have to be one of the murder victims to view yourself as unsafe. "Well, 300 people have been murdered in this town this year, but none of them was me, so I'm perfectly fine hanging out around here."
America is not a free country. Songs that would have you believe otherwise are false. My love of truth prohibits me from singing false songs.
via oneofthebest
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