A Good Place to Live?
The nation involved is a large, wealthy and powerful one; but …
– Government officials reserve to right to eavesdrop on your telephone calls, read your email, search your home, investigate your political interests and personal background, all unbeknownst to you and without Court approval.
– Anyone who voices disagreement with the Rulers’ policies, actions or behaviour is automatically labelled disloyal, unpatriotic and suspect.
– Your name, ethnicity and/or appearance are considered reasonable grounds for anonymous imprisonment without charge, for an indeterminate period and without access to legal counsel or contact by family or friends.
– The party in power creates laws favouring the wealthiest citizens and pays for them by plundering support for education, elderly services, aid to the poverty-stricken, and food and heating assistance to the poorest of citizens.
– Laws pertaining to health care, environmental protection and corporate taxation are written by and for the corporations most directly affected … many of whom have close financial ties to Government Officials.
– The Country’s Head of State creates lies and distortions on which to base an order to invade, bomb and loot a non-threatening nation, resulting in unknown deaths, injuries, hardships and extraordinary degrees of suffering amongst innocent, helpless civilians. All in the name of “Freedom,” “Democracy” and “Individual Rights.”
– At the same time, that Head of State warmly welcomes a dictator internationally recognised as a vicious suppressor of human rights, with much pomp and ceremony and then, apologies to that dictator for any discomfort created by a brave woman who spoke up and publicly protested the dictator’s unspeakable outrages in their mutual home country.
– The woman is subsequently arrested and charged with the Federal Offence of “Threatening a Foreign Leader” for voicing objections to the dictator’s suppression of and violence against the philosophical organisation to which she belongs.
If you think that sounds like a good place to live … welcome to the United States. You can have it.
[PS: Finances, alone, have prevented me from long since moving back home to Dublin. Anyone thinking of emigrating to the US needs to think long and hard about the sort of society in which s/he really wants to live.]
