M & D Group Read 2017-18. Chapter the First

[Mark Kohut]

"The crime they styl'd 'anonymity"....the crime of fingering injustice
makers, so to speak.
Crimes committed "by the Stronger against the Weaker". The history of
Europe now (then).

Learned that "my name had never been
my own, --rather belonging, all this time, to the Authorities, who forbade
me to change it,
or withhold it"....

Chilling actually, despite the Reverend's seemingly light retelling.....

One's identity fully owned by the State...the worst of totalitarianism as
simply stated.
England then.

"Freezing edge---cf bleeding edge--of a Future invisible". Cold future,
America.
America, where one can have a new name. Where one is not owned by the
State.
Where one's name is his "rugged individualism" as an American, that new
man. Where individualism
becomes a deep character trait--contra Olde Europe--see De Tocqueville,
Crevecoeur, countless others
thru every Western ever made--and other historians and pundits.

One of the basic rights, a human right in the Universal Declaration of, is
the right to self-identity.
Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

America, let it begin unfolding.
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