Do as thou wilt shall be the law

I long for the days of the double standard.  These are the days of anything goes and standards that are based only on the ever changing expedience of the moment.  If China cracks down on dissent by tightening control over what is considered to be a State Secret, we look down our noses and make clucking noises.  When we do it, it’s the patriotic thing to approve of – there’s a war on.  That’s if, of course, the leak didn’t come from those charged with keeping those secrets. Senator Sanatorium can wave classified documents around and offer them to reporters as long as he is only using them to support Bush’s big lie. The New York Times is a nest of traitors for publishing common knowledge that was released on the White House web site years ago.

The inner circle of mob captains like Karl Rove can do as they please.  It’s patriotic to believe that it’s OK to break the law by revealing a state secret when the leak damages someone trying to legitimately influence policy by supplying the information they were hired to supply. It all hinges on whether the information is something the Republican autocracy wants you to hear or not to hear. Right and wrong legal and illegal are infinitely relative.

On the other hand leaking news of illegal, corrupt behavior on the part of the government is not OK.  It’s patriotic to back the government when the government breaks the law and it’s unpatriotic to protest when that crime harms you because exposing a crime might be revealing a state secret.  Understand?  It’s all very simple – anything is right or wrong depending on what the administration wants to do, steal or make you believe at the moment. We have a standard to fit any occasion.

Chinese courts have imposed prison terms for journalists, social activists and religious leaders for disclosures that would be routine public information in most countries, according to the New York Times. Anything can be a state secret if they want it to claims Human Rights Watch’s Nicholas Bequelin.  That’s just totalitarian and terrible isn’t it?  We can know that for sure, because they are Commies over there, it’s a different story here because when we lie, cheat, steal and punish the righteous, it’s to fight for freedom – and besides, we believe in God and they don’t.  I hope that helps you understand.

It’s hard to know how to be a good citizen without a good old fashioned double standard.  Maybe the safest thing is to sit down, tune out and shut up.