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Dear Editor, In 1948, an Englishman named Eric Arthur Blair, writing a book entitled "1984" under the pen name George Orwell, predicted the appearance of laws against inappropriate facial expressions. It was called "face crime," and people were imprisoned and tortured for it. Few people took Orwell seriously until "hate crime" laws and their politicized applications began to harm the freedom of Americans to say what they really thought. Many writers predicted that once the government started making any Thought Crime laws at all, it wouldn't be long before the law was entirely corrupted by the accumulation of ill-advised legislation, invidious prosecutions, and bad case law. Those predictions, long ignored by the mainstream media, are now coming true. Your newspaper published, last 4 October, an aticle about a St. Louis-area principal, Jeff Boyer, suspending a boy from school because he had smiled at a drawing of the 11 September attack on the World Trade Center. Principal Jeff Boyer must be shown the error of his decision to punish this boy. He must not be let off with a mere reprimand for a moral misjudgment of this magnitude. Jeff Boyer should be fired from his position as school principal, to show others who are vested with such responsibility that a person, even a school child, has a right to display with his facial expression the attitude of his own free choice. If Jeff Boyer is not penalized, most fittingly with the loss of his job, then the next generation of Americans may grow up having to wonder when they might be imprisoned for "face crime." Jerry Abbott ------------------------------------------------------ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com. |
Do you want to help Paul Volz get his freedom back? Then copy the letter below and send it to the editor of your local newspaper, being sure to sign it and include at least your hometown address.
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Dear Editor, In 1948, an Englishman named Eric Arthur Blair, writing a book entitled "1984" under the pen name George Orwell, predicted the appearance of laws against inappropriate facial expressions. It was called "face crime," and people were imprisoned and tortured for it. Few people took Orwell seriously until "hate crime" laws and their politicized applications began to harm the freedom of Americans to say what they really thought. Many writers predicted that once the government started making any Thought Crime laws at all, it wouldn't be long before the law was entirely corrupted by the accumulation of ill-advised legislation, invidious prosecutions, and bad case law. Those predictions, long ignored by the mainstream media, are now coming true. On 4 October 2001, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an article about a local principal, Jeff Boyer, suspending a fifth-grade boy from school because he had smiled at a drawing of the 11 September attack on the World Trade Center. A moral misjudgment of that magnitude cannot be safely disregarded — but the error was Boyer's, not the boy's. The loss of our liberties would need to be corrected, sooner or later, with a civil struggle that could kill millions of Americans, far more than any amount of terrorism is likely to cost. If Jeff Boyer is not penalized, most fittingly with the loss of his job, then the next generation of Americans may grow up having to wonder when they might be imprisoned for "face crime." Your Name Your Town, Your State |