A scene such as you describe could not possibly occur in The Freest Country on Earth™—we all know that. I can only conclude, therefore, that:
1) Your account is not to be believed, or
2) If your account is to be believed, then it must have happened in some other country, or
3) If it happened here, then...oh, dear...we need to work on our branding.
Passing strange how we've passed by imperceptible degrees into a police state (I was going to say "full-fledged," but I suspect that the wingspan is nowhere near its maximum, and that the feathers will be the size of surfboards within our lifetimes), the while proclaiming our predatory empire as an exemplar of liberty. Your account is depressing, although not surprising.
This is what we are. This is where we live. At one time I would have urged an end to the hypocrisy of pretending not to be a police state, but the events of the last dozen years, prior to which I favored the abandonment of the pretense of a benign foreign policy, have given me a respect for hypocrisy as a brake, however slight, on the nation's darkest tendencies.
I'm sorry you had to endure this, and powerless to be anything more than sorry.
cordially,
1) Your account is not to be believed, or
2) If your account is to be believed, then it must have happened in some other country, or
3) If it happened here, then...oh, dear...we need to work on our branding.
Passing strange how we've passed by imperceptible degrees into a police state (I was going to say "full-fledged," but I suspect that the wingspan is nowhere near its maximum, and that the feathers will be the size of surfboards within our lifetimes), the while proclaiming our predatory empire as an exemplar of liberty. Your account is depressing, although not surprising.
This is what we are. This is where we live. At one time I would have urged an end to the hypocrisy of pretending not to be a police state, but the events of the last dozen years, prior to which I favored the abandonment of the pretense of a benign foreign policy, have given me a respect for hypocrisy as a brake, however slight, on the nation's darkest tendencies.
I'm sorry you had to endure this, and powerless to be anything more than sorry.
cordially,