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

[Joseph Tracy]

Nicely written
Chilling indeed. And  a deep freeze that has has been an American trait for too long. One of the most articulate elaborations of the disappearance of personal freedom recently is Errol Morris’s Wormwood. 

> On Dec 30, 2017, at 6:49 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> "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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