Should We Freak Out About H.R. 1955?

One of the more disturbing bits of news to hit headlines today was that back in October, the House of Representatives passed a bit of legislation entitled Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, H.R. 1955. Reading quick synopses and evaluations of this bill, one might think that Orwell’s 1984 really is at last upon us. Public criticism seems to focus on how this legislation opens the door to “thought-crime” punishment, how we are all off to the gulags, now. Carefully reading through the bill, however, does not support these outraged assertions. Still, it’s not a far leap to reach some fairly disturbing conclusions.
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Legalize Marijuana or Hand Over Your Guns

Let’s take just a moment and consider some fundamental paradoxes within the United States’ legal system. We like to think we are the nation of freedom, the nation of get-ahead, the nation of self-made men and women who just have to have a dream in order to thrive. With the Constitution as our founding document, including the Bill of Rights which outlines express guarantees of all sorts of “inalienable” rights such as the freedom to say whatever we want, the freedom to own guns, the freedom to worship whatever god, etc., we like to think of ourselves as a pretty clever nation. Now, nevermind the extent to which those rights have been watered down and whittled away over the years, because what I want to consider is a sort of flaw in our thinking when it comes to what we claim we believe (as opposed to what we actually allow our “servants” to write into law and enforce).
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