CONTROLLING THE CONTROLLED

Pseudoephedrine cold medicines are now being controlled. And,
"although the law may cause an inconvenience for law-abiding citizens
. it is a big step forward in curbing the production of meth," Joel
Thornbury said. The president of the Kentucky Pharmacists Association
goes on to say, "And this is just the beginning . if it works, we may
very well end up taking (the inconveniences) further."

The national homeland security laws also are "inconveniences" to
law-abiding citizens: keeping tabs on library and Internet usage among
an abundance of other big brother monitoring.

It is dangerous to use analogies of Hitler's early years as a
comparison to ongoing American events, but how far are we -
law-abiding citizens - prepared to be inconvenienced in order to feel
secure?

Hitler said the Jews had to be controlled; he said the gypsies had to
be controlled; eventually, he said the law-abiding citizens that were
not a part of the Nazi Party had to be controlled.

I cannot drive my car unless I have papers - as the Nazi checkpoints
would say: driver's license, proof of ownership and mandatory
insurance . I cannot buy cold medicine without my papers: a properly
recognized identification card . and international travel is another
story.

Laws and regulations make life a lot easier. Without laws and
regulations (governmental controls) there is anarchy. But when free
citizens are not concerned or involved in the processes of government,
there is totalitarianism.

Let the law-abiding citizens be just a little bit careful in how far
they will allow statements like Thornbury's - "We may very well end up
taking it (citizen controls) further" - to go.

The president of the Kentucky Pharmacists Association may not be the
president of the United States, or Congress, the U.S. Senate or the
Supreme Court, but the statements are reflective of what those more
powerful regulatory bodies are quite often saying.

Do we really need to control the law-abiding in order to control the
outlaw?

Hank Stringer

Cecilia