You. Â You feared that we’d come for your guns. Â Did we?
I. Â I fear that you will come for my books, my words, my thoughts. Â Will you?
I fear that you will stop my children’s teachers teaching them about geology, geography, biology, history, literature, and the diversity of experience in this great wide world.
The world is so full of a number of things
I’m sure we should all live as happy as kings
I fear you will authorize and command the formation of an American Stazi – citizen vigilantes empowered by law, champing at the bit to stamp out whatever you deem to be dangerous or seditious thought. Â When my children are taught Creationism and Abstinence at school, will your Secret Police sweep all students’ households to ensure no parents are hiding copies of Origin of Species and Our Bodies, Ourselves? Â Will you seize my children and sweep them off to re-education camp if I help them memorize the poetry of A. E. Hausmann, or let them read Ninteen Eighty Four, or put a Dead Kennedy’s disc in the CD player and talk to them about what the lyrics mean?
What books will you burn? What recordings will you erase? What classics of art, cinema, literature, dance, and architecture will you deem decadent and ripe for destruction. Â How beige will our world be, before you determine it is “safe” for your ideals and agendas?
I ask you: will I be required to keep my metaphors in a locked cabinet, with the safety on? Â Will there be a magazine size limitation on my vocabulary? Â Will it be per syllable or letter? Â Can I keep my words if I promise to use them only for sport hunting and target practice, but not for assault nor insurrection?
I ask, is it too late to order my cyanide capsule, or will you be issuing them as a matter of course?
I know that some of this is….what?….a thought experiment but I also know that it’s real.
I wish I could guarantee the safety of those more vulnerable than I am. All I can guarantee is that they (you & yours) will be harmed over my corpse.