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Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld an administrative edict: if a you work in a clinic which receives federal money, you are forbidden to mention abortion to a patient, even though abortion is legal.
That is, he who pays the piper calls the tune. If Uncle Sam pays, and the current regime says certain things are unmentionable, then you don't mention them.
If you can avoid taking federal money, then you retain your rights as a citizen. However, it can be difficult to avoid federal money these days, and the Bush folks will find this ruling quite useful:
· A federal agent appears at a radio station.
Remember all those 'Be all you can be' ads you used to
run for the Army?
The DJ nods.
Then you agree that KRUD has accepted federal
money.
Sure. But what's the problem?
You played a Ray Charles song the other day. Ray
Charles was a heroin addict, and even worse, you played
'Let's Go Get Stoned,' which encourages substance abuse.
Don't you know there's a War on Drugs? And that the Bush
Administration has ordered that no federal money may go,
directly or indirectly, toward any organization which
promotes substance abuse in any way, shape or form?
So quit running your Army ads.
That's done. But you'd better watch out at
license-renewal time. After all, the FCC runs on federal
money.
· At your local library, a Bush agent approaches
the circulation desk. Do you have any books written by
John Adams, second president of the U.S.?
I suppose we do. Why?
I want those taken out of circulation. You see, the
official policy of the Bush administration is that the
United States is a Christian nation, and Adams once wrote
that 'the government of the United States of America is not
any sense found on the Christian Religion.'
Any organization which receives federal money is
forbidden to disseminate material which opposes
administration policy, and it is my understanding that you
folks use subsidized fourth-class book-rate mail for your
inter-library loan exchanges.
The possibilities are exciting. Get an FHA loan on your house, an SBA loan for your business, sell something to the government -- and you've just sold your freedom.
We were warned. Thirty years ago, there were cranks who
proclaimed that federal money always comes with strong
strings attached. They said things like A government big
enough to give you everything you need is big enough to
take away everything you have.
The terrible irony is that those cranks were known as Goldwater conservatives then. Now that they're in power with Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, they're making sure that all their dire predictions come true.
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