Freedom is never free

The last thing I want to do is intro­duce pol­i­tics into my blog com­ments, but I feel com­pelled to write about the recent State of Texas abor­tion law. Not about the issue or debate about abor­tion. You have your views. I have mine. Per­haps they are dif­fer­ent. Per­haps they are the same. You won’t find a debate here. No, what I need to com­ment about are those pro­vi­sions in the Texas law that asks and incen­tivizes (with mon­ey!) cit­i­zens to report on the activ­i­ties of their neighbors.

I am old enough to remem­ber the repres­sive Fas­cist regimes in West­ern Europe. I recall the Com­mu­nist regimes of Rus­sia and East­ern Europe. The Stasi in East Ger­many. (“One of the most effec­tive and repres­sive intel­li­gence and secret police agen­cies ever to exist.” (Some­time look at the Ger­man film, The Lives of Oth­ers.) I also rec­ol­lect the encour­age­ment of inform­ers in our own coun­try dur­ing the McCarthy period.

All these gov­ern­ment groups legit­imized cit­i­zens spy­ing upon their fel­low cit­i­zens. They debased soci­ety. Ruined lives. Cor­rupt­ed the social fab­ric. Made peo­ple fear­ful of one anoth­er. Killed people.

I beg you to imag­ine the dev­as­ta­tion such an inform­ing action would have on a Texas high school student.

My fur­ther point here is that at some point this kind of spy­ing and inform­ing activity—in these circumstances—turns to books and what peo­ple were read­ing. Not so very long ago, here in Col­orado, an agency of the US gov­ern­ment want­ed to know what books an indi­vid­ual pur­chased from a book­store. The US Supreme Court reject­ed that par­tic­u­lar line of inquiry. I have no doubt such an inquiry will hap­pen again.

To cre­ate a soci­ety in which peo­ple are paid to spy upon one anoth­er, be it for pol­i­tics or the books they read is abhor­rent to me. As a cit­i­zen, as a writer, I feel oblig­ed to speak up.

As the old say­ing goes, “Free­dom is nev­er free.”