So today is the day that Habeas Corpus was suspended by the United States Congress, under the direction of George W. Bush, the first truly illegitimate president. It’s odd to be at the cusp of true adulthood, when the opening notes of all sci-fi actually takes place.
I am not quite sure at this point how to react. Righteous indignation seems like a poor response, and armed objection seems like a foolish one. In our history, the government has always used the popular support of the American people as a weight for or against certain actions, and the ones that the government didn’t feel comfortable being balanced, were hidden away. These days, it appears that those with disregard for other view points have moved those beliefs and systems out of the shadows, and have no issue with taking it right to the American people. However, the difference is: this group doesn’t care if there is a weight, because in essence the power of the few is centralized enough that the citizenry doesn’t matter anymore. So, I guess the dichotomy of the situation is that I cannot believe that all of this is taking place, but at least they are telling us about it.
That being said, I never imagined this is where we would be. Granted, I always took the pessimistic/cynical approach to the future, preferring the honesty of Orwell over the hope of Star Trek. But at this point, I never anticipated any of this would be so overt, and at the same time, so ill implemented. Once would expect that the start of a Police state would appear much more subversive and only through the guise of technology, as opposed to outright bigotry, but what else should one expect from the country that is only here in the first place because of slave labor and human rights abuse.
The cliched quote is that the winner writes the history, but what happens when the concept of history disappears completely?