by
Eric Peters
EricPetersAutos.com

I just got
invited by Mazda to attend a press event for the 2013 CX-5 in CA.
I used to attend such events regularly, and IÂ’d love to attend
this one- but am pretty much decided against because of the prospect
of being handled by some TSA cretin (because I wonÂ’t
be scanned). I feel obliged to stand on principle, but thereÂ’s
also the practical reason that I know myself – and know I might
mouth off or maybe even hit one of those sons-of-bitches. And I
donÂ’t want to end up in jail (or worse). IÂ’m still trying
to practice avoidance. I know someday this will probably no longer
be possible. But for now, I am trying to stay out of harmÂ’s
way – even though I know harm is not looking to stay out of
my way.

This is the
dilemma of living in America, post 911.

If it can be
called living.

It is no longer
possible to travel by air without submitting to degradations unimaginable
just 10 years ago. All of us are faced with the horrid choice: Either
we constrict our lives as a form of quiet protest against those
who are trying to degrade us – no more travel by air, which
in addition to everything else also means not being able to see
friends/family who live more than a few hundred miles distant without
an arduous journey by car. Or we bow our heads (and spread our legs)
and become complicit in establishing the new normal – and acceptance
of those who degrade us.

TheyÂ’ve
got us cornered – again.

As has been
noted by others, “the enemies of freedom” are right here
– not in Iraq, or Afghanistan or Iran. Saddam Hussein did not
take away my Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. George W. Bush did.
Achgezundheit (or however he spells his name) has never said he
may target me for murder at his whim. The president of the United
States has.

We think we
have freedom (well, some of us do) because weÂ’re still
allowed to wear a green T-shirt vs. a red one (for now) or buy a
Chevy rather than a Ford. But even here, our choices are narrowly
defined by the government – which won’t allow just anybody
to make a T-shirt or build a car. One must have permission (licenses)
and submit to close and endless monitoring, as well as abide by
a very long and detailed rule book (regulations).

Freedom my
ass. You canÂ’t even get firecrackers anymore in most
states.

But now, tyranny
is out of the closet. Its infringements are no longer subtle. Yet
most Americans are still asleep – or so medicated and conditioned
that theyÂ’re no longer capable of seeing.

How much worse
does it have to get?

Will it literally
take a bayonet shove in the back as they are directed to the trucks
that will take them to the camps? I think it will.

We marvel at
the passivity of (most) Jews in WWII Germany. The way hundreds –
even thousands – of people accepted the barking orders of a
handful of guards telling them to disrobe and then, in orderly groups,
line themselves up for shooting (or gassing).

Americans are
like that now.

They do what
they are told. They Submit and they Obey. Even now, when the price
of resisting is minimal. They could walk away from the airports
– and the worst that would happen is they’d have to drive
to get where they needed to be. Or maybe postpone that trip. They
could decide it’s not worth the indignity – the challenge
to their status as free men, as human beings – to attend
the Stupor Bowl if it means being scanned and groped. Imagine an
empty (or even half-empty) stadium this weekend – and what
a devastating protest that would be.

Imagine empty
airports – or even half-empty airports.

Imagine people
putting their cars in Park, turning off the engine and turning on
their flashers – and just sitting there at East German
style “safety” checkpoints. Masses of them. Passively
refusing to participate. Forcing the system to confront itself –
or at least, making it plain what the system has become.
And what it is going to be – very soon.

Instead, most
Americans will gape at the Stupor Bowl, adjusting themselves after
their groping. They will continue to fly – doing whatever is
required of them first. They will “Yes, Sir” the flak
jacket-wearing thug who arrests them for no reason at all, merely
because they happen to be on a given road at a given moment in time.
(And yes, a “random stop” is an arrest, by definition.
You are detained by threat of force. The duration of the
detainment – 5 minutes or five years – does not change
the essential nature of the thing.)

And so they
will go peaceably and quietly into that good night, too – when
the consequences for resisting involve much more than an inconvenience
for standing on principle.

That hollow-eyed
man kneeling in front of the ditch, looking at us from the pages
of long-ago? He is in fact our own reflection in the mirror.

It is a lesson
we will have to learn again.

Reprinted
with permission from EricPetersAutos.com.

February
7, 2012

Eric Peters
[send him mail] is an automotive
columnist and author of Automotive
Atrocities and Road Hogs (2011). Visit his
website.

Copyright
© 2012 Eric Peters

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