That very article I also featured on my rather schizophrenic, Portuguese-language blog, a week ago. Was it a coincidence of sorts, or just an instance of synergic convergence between two like-minds trying to figure out Generalissimo El Busho and his cohorts?

Hope you’re well — this new layout looks great. Wish I had a few bucks to spare on server space, just to run Movable Type too. Free blogging tools can only suck so much.

Your long-time-no-talk-but-still-loving friend,

Ricardo

As I wrote to you a couple of days ago, it is not scary that the current US government is manipulating people the way it does, and slowly eroding their freedom. Totalitarian governments will always attempt to do that, so it is something to expect. What’s really scary is that people are both letting themselves be manipulated and quietly acquiescing.

El Busho’s motivations seem quite plain to me – fanatics are usually transparent (of course, he might just prove me wrong and have more layers than I thought). What I don’t understand at all is the country itself: the lack of opposition the new laws are getting from the average people that are going to be affected by them, from lawmakers from opposing parties that should have a dissenting view but mumble to themselves in a low voice “hrmpf, maybe this isn’t right” instead of stoning those who propose the laws.

Me, I’m not going to the US in the near future, and when I travel I expect not to have to stop there. It is not that I actually believe that I have a chance of being tagged as a possible terrorist sympathizer, enemy combatant or whatever expression they’re using for the week; but just the fact that I refuse to comply with everything they will require to “make the world safer for me”.

Take care,

Ricardo