Freiheit

Ihr Ausweis – und schnell!

What would you call a law that allowed the police to stop you anywhere without reason, ask for your papers, your name, address and birth date and toss you in jail if you couldn’t produce them? You can’t tell me this doesn’t conjure up knee booted Hollywood Gestapo or Cold War cinema noir about Eastern Europe.

It also conjures up Ohio. According to News Channel 5 in Cleveland, a new bill which not long ago would not have seemed possible in this country awaits the signature of Ohio Governor Taft. How did this happen in the “land of the Free?” Simple – just say 9/11 800 million times and it will all come clear. You see, it’s not fascism, it’s a “tough antiterrorism bill.”

"It brings us frighteningly close to a show me your papers society," said Carrie Davis of the ACLU, which opposes the Ohio Patriot Act. Do you wonder why the Republicans hate the ACLU so much?

If it looks like Fascism; if it sounds like Fascism; if it clicks its heels and asks for your papers like Fascism – what do you call it? Whatever anyone calls it, I don’t call it freedom.