If only it were a delicious frothy drink. Or a fun game to be played at picnics. But it’s not. The Stasi (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) was the secret police of East Germany. The organization that had neighbors spying on neighbors and citizens reporting each other. It’s a common creation of authoritarian states. Stalin had the NKVD. Nazi Germany had the Gestapo. I wonder what President Trump will call his secret police?
Here are a couple of quotes from the presumptive Republican nominee for president made on Monday June 13th, 2016 —
“If it can be proven that somebody had information about any attack, and did not give this information to authorities, they must serve prison time.”
“We need to make sure every single person involved in this plan, including anyone who knew something, but didn’t tell us, is brought to justice. These people need to have consequences, big consequences.”
An entire class of American citizens has been deemed guilty and worthy of suspicion solely on the basis of their religion. That is the very definition of unAmerican. It is contrary to our founding documents, our ideals, our sense of ourselves.
If it doesn’t send a shiver down the spine of any thinking citizen then the grand experiment that was American representative democracy is truly ending.
