Opinion writers like Andrew Taban and Lois Eisenberg submit columns and letters like the ones this morning (April 14) lamenting the destruction of our “democracy” (how I have come to hate that word for its incessant misuse). They speak of the current administration as if it were leading us into some sort of police state. None of them know what a real police state is like because they’ve never lived in one. They’ve never known real suppression or oppression. They’ve never lived in countries like the one my family comes from, countries where openly writing the sort of stuff that they write will get a person arrested, jailed, and either sent to a re-education center or tortured and executed.
For the record, my family comes from Iran. Yeah, that place. Someone like Andrew Taban wouldn’t last a day in Iran, so count your blessings.
No, none of that has happened to them, nor will it ever happen to them, because they live here, and not someplace like there. And yet, they have the ungrateful audacity to actually compare the United States of America to places like that.
I am at a complete loss as to what they really want. What right, freedom, or privilege is it that they have demanded and not been granted? What right, freedom, or privilege are they in such dire fear of losing?
As far as I’m concerned they should all thank their lucky stars and kiss the ground they’re standing on for the fact that they are allowed to routinely complain and remain alive. And, for better or for worse, I don’t see that changing, not here at least, and you can bank on that, Lois.
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
