Dress rehearsal
At the risk of venturing into black-helicopter territory, I couldn't help but notice this nugget in the latest accounts of the Baghdad Wall that's being built on the theory it'll keep Sunnis and Shiites from killing each other:
In some sealed-off areas, troops armed with biometric scanning devices will compile a neighborhood census by recording residents' fingerprints and eye patterns and will perhaps issue them special badges, military officials said. At least 10 Baghdad neighborhoods are slated to become or already are gated communities, said Brig. Gen. John F. Campbell, the deputy commander of American forces in Baghdad…
"We've really taken a hard look and said, 'This is an area where we need to monitor people coming in and people coming out . . . and it is the only way we could do it,' " Campbell said.
I guarantee if this were happening back in Clintontime, right-wingers would ask whether this sort of thing was a dress rehearsal for martial law in the United States — and they'd at least have a point. But the very same people probably aren't batting an eye at this news today. Meanwhile, left-wingers agitate for more federal gun laws after the Virginia Tech massacre, never once considering whether it's a good idea for a federal government under George W. Bush to have a monoply on weaponry. And Leviathan keeps growing…
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