It Can Happen To You

It Can Happen to You

I know conservatives generally hate any protests and any form of speech they disagree with, but they will take their guns with them wherever they go - especially protests. So, it really bothers me the insanely hypocritical nature of most conservatives right now. More than a few people have been arrested and threatened with deportation for doing nothing more than protesting or saying something that the people in power disliked.

There are some very obvious signs of tyranny and dictatorship that are recognized world wide. Arresting people for doing nothing wrong but saying something the people in power don't like is a major red flag. When I was a kid examples of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and unnamed dissidents in China were obvious examples of why our country was so much better. We may have not liked people burning the flag or any other protected speech, but we didn't arrest and imprison people simply for their speech.

Those days seem to be gone now. If you were part of the protests last year against Israeli aggression in Gaza you can be arrested and thrown in a jail far away from home while you wait to be extrajudicially deported to a foreign nation. You can be an important scientist who happens to say something unflattering about the president on social media and be refused entry into the country for a conference. Or you can be an ambassador from another country and say that what is happening here is similar to the racism that existed in their own country under apartheid, and suddenly find yourself persona non grata and immediately deported back to your home country.

None of these people were violent. None of them were criminals or are criminals. They are just people speaking their mind, and for some reason the government is violating their first amendment rights of free speech. IT is a marked and definite step toward the end of democracy. It isn't long before we have masked and unmarked police forces removing people from the streets or having "concerned citizens" snitching on their fellow countrymen because the government asked them too. Oh wait, that is already happening.

All I will say to many of you who are happy about the cruelty and law breaking of the government, sooner or later the lawlessness of the government will be focused on you. If it can happen to those you do not like for not doing anything illegal, it will certainly happen to you when you decide to exercise your rights. Dictators will not tolerate nonconformance. Maybe you will be the next one to win a one way trip to the supermax prison in El Salvador.