In their little 1972 book "None Dare Call It Conspiracy," Gary Allen and Larry Abraham provided readers with 14 "signposts to slavery" -- significant events to watch for, as indicators that even a free country might be moving gradually toward totalitarianism -- a list initially compiled by Dr. Warren Carroll, a refugee from Yugoslavian communism.
Nothing on the list had been made law in America at the time, and many readers thought it absurd that the authors felt the need to warn Americans to watch out for restrictions on setting up bank accounts or taking money out of the country; abolition of private ownership of handguns; requirements that private financial transactions be keyed to Social Security numbers so records can be fed into government computers; compulsory non-military service; compulsory registration with the government of where individuals work; attempts to restrict freedom of movement within the United States; any attempt to make major new laws by executive decree, and so forth.
Of course, some folks -- the kind who insist "fascism" can't exist unless the police don a specific type of black suit bedecked with silver skulls and lightning slashes, the kind who insist it's not an "internal passport" as long as they label it "Driver's License" -- will still shrug and ask what's the problem. So it's getting a bit difficult to open a bank account or land a job without giving one's Social Security number -- which Congress once swore would never become a "national ID." Times change, don't they? Society is more complex now. It's all for our protection and that of our credit ratings. Right?
Buried among Dr. Carroll's 14 warnings was another that must have seemed pretty obscure and far-fetched in 1972: Americans were advised to watch out for "compulsory psychological treatment for non-government workers or public schoolchildren."
In fact, when Time magazine went to examine a typical, suburban public high school for a cover story last fall, they found 20 percent of the children dosed up on officially prescribed psychoactive drugs -- the very kind which had been in use by Oregon school shooter Kip Kinkel and by one of the two lads who shot up Columbine High School in Colorado last year.
And now even readers of the sports pages are coming face to face with this newfangled psychiatric orthodoxy -- the notion that the proper solution to any tasteless or offensive behavior is to "medicalize" the problem.
Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker -- described by team president Stan Kasten as having "a history of good relationships with players of different races and different ethnic backgrounds," spoke recently to a reporter for Sports Illustrated, explaining on the record (and now he knows what (start ital)that(end ital) means, doesn't he?) why he would prefer not to play for a New York-based team.
In colorful language, Rocker visualized having to ride to work on a New York subway, seated "next to some queer with AIDS." He also complained that New York contains too many immigrants who have not mastered English, asking "How the hell did they get in this country?" Rocker proceeded to make disparaging remarks about Asian-American drivers, and even managed to refer to a black teammate as "a fat monkey."
At least he's thorough.
Mr. Rocker appears to be a stupid oaf. Readers have every right to take exception to his bigoted comments. If his team believes he has brought them disrepute which could hurt ticket sales, they may of course examine his contract for options involving discipline or even dismissal.
But instead -- even though Mr. Rocker has apologized and expressed remorse -- team president Kasten and Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced last Thursday the pitcher will be ordered to undergo a series of psychological tests before his final punishment is announced.
What?
As much as the catalog of recognized psychiatric maladies has been creatively expanded in recent years, I was unaware that "being a big, stupid loudmouth" is now a treatable medical diagnosis.
Again, this kind of mouthing off is the mark of a boorish lout. Mr. Rocker may well have damaged the likelihood he will ever be retained as a network "color commentator" (though parallel opportunities could well open up in professional wrestling ...)
But no matter how "politically incorrect" his method of expression, this pea-brained athlete has done nothing more than raise important issues of current political debate -- immigration, welfare, tolerance of previously closeted lifestyles -- in terms which most of his fans have doubtless heard a hundred times in workplace or tavern.
Just as in the case of entertainers who "push the envelope" of propriety in part to get us to re-examine our own prejudices -- Lenny Bruce and Andrew Dice Clay come to mind -- Americans can always refrain from paying to hear such stuff.
But once we start "curing" politically incorrect speech by locking away the perpetrators in anonymous psychiatric wards, or dosing them up on happy pills ... we really will have passed another "signpost to slavery."
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
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Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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