OPINION: Hell’s Bells! I Don’t Have Any Papers!

[The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author.]

James
C. Johnston Jr.

I
hear that I.C.E. is coming to Massachusetts! That fills me with some
justifiable fear. The Wampanoags never gave any of my folks any
papers when they landed at Plymouth Rock back in 1620! My family has
been here for 405 years without any papers showing that we entered
what became the Commonwealth of Massachusetts legally! That means
that for four centuries my folks have been here illegally.

Can
you imagine my fear! I mean any minute some guys can pull up to me in
the streets of Franklin and grab me and haul me away! They most
likely be dressed in jeans, and sneakers, or boots, and hoodies with
dark glasses over their eyes, and with masks covering their faces.
They will grab me, and pull me into a van, throw me to the floor, and
speed me away to some Hell Hole in Louisiana, or South America, or
maybe Africa, or even worse to Governor Rick De Santis’ Florida,
where freedom isn’t necessarily free anymore, to live among the
alligators and other exotic wildlife of the Everglades in their
especial detention center there among a growing population of boa
constrictors.

My
family has been here for 405 years without any papers! How careless
of them. What were they thinking? It’s really scary when you come
to think of it isn’t it. I didn’t think that this kind of thing
could happen in America in 2025, but it can. If our 14th
Amendment rights to automatic birth-citizenship get taken away from
us, none of us whose families came to America before 1776 may have a
right to stay here.

Where
will we go? Where can we be sent? I hate hot climates, and my skin
burns so easily in the sun. I have always been curious about the
Senegal, but I would like to be able to choose when I go there. Does
the “Dearest and Fearless Leader” really want us all to go some
alternative place so that he can turn Franklin into some kind of
dream vacation resort? After all, he has expressed that wish for
certain real-estate along the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean
which is supposed to be home to the Palestinians. Oh well. You have
to give the guy credit. He’s always thinking up new ways to improve
the neighborhood and make a few odd billion dollars for his rich
friends.

I
must admit I haven’t always been comfortable about some aspects of
the Dear Leader’s urban renewal programs of late. This is true
especially if it means relocating millions of people to places
unknown in order to empty out the areas intended for improvement. Oh
well, who ever said people have a right to have an expectation to
have a country if a much richer person wants to develop your land.
Just what gives the rights to the people who live there to keep on
inhabiting the region if rich guys want it for development? After
all, as the “Fearless Leader” stated all that lovely beach-front
property will be worth a bundle when it’s properly developed!

That
reminds me. How would you like a ski villa in Greenland? It’s true
that we don’t own Greenland yet, but that could change. It’s a
great winter fun opportunity. I mean there is an endless opportunity
to make all the snow you want and the ski-season will be very long in
sunny Greenland. And I understand that there might be some other
real-estate up for grabs in the South American and other more
tropical regions if one should happen to prefer warmer climates and
water sports opportunities like water skiing.

Well
I am glad that I live in a free country where police authorities just
can’t grab you and haul you away to Gestapo Headquarters and then
make you just disappear without the inconvenience of getting
warrants, using grand juries, and bothering with legal due process in
general. I mean just look at history. The Puritan oligarchy outlawed
lawyers for practicing law in courts by defending people accused of
crimes, because their use of “Legal Trickery” just got in the way
of real justice. And that is why nobody accused of witchcraft in 1692
and 1693 had lawyers to defend them from charges of being in league
with The Devil.

It’s
a good thing that we live in a free country where you can’t be
picked up because the arresting authorities don’t like the way you
look, or because of your ethnic origins, or dress, or the way you
wear your hair, or choose to have tattoos. I mean, just what right
do you think people have to dress the way that they like! Free
choices like that might lead to anarchy, riot, and disorder. Why
these weirdly dressed people might even march on the capitol in
Washington, invade the building itself, and try to stop the Electors
of the President of the United States from casting their votes for
some damned Liberal who will champion all that dangerous “Liberty”
and “Free Choice Stuff!” We need no other “Fearless Leader”
than the one God has given us.

Only
officers of I. C. E. should have the right to wear hoodies and masks,
and large dark glasses, and the unquestioned authority to grab
people off the street and make them disappear. After all, it’s the
new Amerikan way! Who needs all this Democracy Stuff anyway. It just
confuses people! The next thing we know messy historical stuff like
slavery, and The McCarthy Hearings will be taught in History Classes.
Where will that lead? Our kids will get all confused and even sad.

I
am glad that this stuff doesn’t happen in America. Half a century
ago, I saw personally some anti-democratic things happening in
Guatemala I found profoundly disturbing that Guatemalans found to be
perfectly normal. Namely, in cities and larger towns, soldiers on
street corners with automatic weapons at the ready. I even walked up
to some of these military guys, much to the consternation of my
guides, and lavishly complimented them on their smart appearance and
asked them if I could take their photograph. They were very happy to
pose for me while brandishing their guns and smiling for my pleasure
and photo in total friendship.

Ain’t
life grand when we all can think just the same way about everything,
loving the same great leader, dressing the same way, and appreciating
the super-rich as the folk heroes of the nation? Isn’t it grand to
see them all at table with the “Beloved Leader”, congratulating
the “Beloved Leader” for being such a great “Beloved Leader”.
Isn’t it a wonderful thing when a really patriotic citizen can
contribute a quarter to half a billion dollars to a political
campaign to elect “The Beloved Leader” to be “The Beloved
Leader”? I am very sure that there is nothing intrinsically
dangerous in that is there?. I am also very happy that good people
want to clean-up American history so that students will never again
be bothered by silly stuff that should not have to know about like
slavery. After all knowing that the citizens of this great nation
engaged in slavery for the first 246 years of our national history
might make these poor sensitive kids feel bad about some aspects of
American life. I mean silly stuff like slavery could even make some
sensitive children feel sad to the point that they may question the
actions of a “Fearless Leader”.

I
mean when you study such historic crap like that, it just causes
confusion doesn’t it? I mean we all know that slavery wasn’t all
that bad was it? Even Rick De Santis has pointed out that slavery was
a good thing, because it provided an opportunity for those slaves to
learn life-skills that would come in handy later on right? Someday
Rick De Santis might make a fine “Fearless Leader” himself when
the one we have moves on, that is if the one we have decides that he
has to, or wants to move on.

Boy
am I happy that we live in a country where we don’t have to worry
about the military armed with machine guns roaming our streets, or
about guys jumping out of vans to grab Ph.D. candidates and other
citizens and take them off to destinations thousands, or a lesser
distance like hundreds, or maybe dozens of miles away without benefit
of legal due-process. It is truly wonderful to know that these awful
things can’t happen in these United States. After all, my father
and millions of other men and women fought a war back in the 1940’s
to stop things like that from happening in these United States of
America.

I
am still worried about that “not having papers thing” from the
Wampanoags about my citizenship rights going back to 1620. Just
because my family has been here since 1620 doesn’t mean that we
have really had a “right” to be here. After all, if that 14th
Amendment thing gets over-turned by the Supreme Court like the
“Fearless Leader” wants, and the court decides that they agree
just because you are native born you don’t have citizenship because
your parents are not citizens, we are all in trouble! May God save
the Commonwealth!