The other day I was watching the original Star Wars movie. In one scene, Luke and Obi-Wan are looking down at the port city where they are going to look for transport off the planet. Obi-Wan states, "You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." I had to laugh, because I thought he could just as well be talking about Washington D.C. or at least the group in charge at present. They are the same group who are presently trashing the Constitution and claiming to be the only ones who are patriotic and righteous. Sounds like a real-world evil empire to me.

And, of course, now that I've criticized them, this letter will go into some database or file. So that if the time comes that they somehow amass enough power, they can come and haul me away with all the other "undesirables": liberals, nonbelievers, freethinkers, feminists, gays, and lesbians, humanists, atheists, believers in non-mainstream religions, "noncompliant" scientists, evolutionists, and environmentalists and on and on. They will haul us away to some Topaz-like compound or make the "worst of us" just disappear.

Sound a bit dramatic and over blown? Perhaps, but then again, maybe not.

As a postscript, I suggest that you take a look at a web sitecalled The American Taliban. It is a little hard to read the whole thing. But it helps make my point about these people.

--Bob Lane