The Land of Do-as-you-please

On Friday, I saw the movie V for Vendetta. Years ago, I also read the comic. If you read the hype, the movie was (another) slam against the Bush Administration. However, this being Hollywood (filmed in England but the Hollywood mentality remains), John Hurt as Adam Sutler is Bush personified.

In the comic, the Leader is much scarier then Hollywood's version. Most Leftists forget that George Orwell's, 1984 , the party was INGSOC, English Socialists. Throughout the comic, the Leader is able to run a state-controlled Nazi-like England (Think Richard III) using the Eye (cameras on the populace), the Ear (Listening posts), the Voice (the Propaganda machine) and Fate itself (a computer consolidating all the data). The comic's version of V's England is scarier because the enemies are not jumped-up stock characters, but bureaucrats with lives and beliefs who crush the populace slowly.

When V finally destroys the Eye and the Ear in book 3, he announces the England is now the Land of Do-as-you-please. In the movie, it seemed everyone was already there from the beginning.

So, how does square with modern politics? It doesn't.

If this was really a Fascist dictatorship, would Michael Moore still be able to make a movie? Would Tim Robbins still make plays and movies today? Kurt Vonnegut is still writing in Turtle Bay and the President will step down on January 20th, 2009. No fascism, no dictatorship. I hope the Republicans will use the arguments by the present-day Democrats when the situation reverses.

Remember, in one-party controlled Los Angeles, No Smoking is allowed, even if you do own the business. I don't smoke too often, but I don't begrudge those who do. Why should the State control every facet of our lives?

We do not live in The Land of Do As You Please, but that invites Chaos. A little order, a little chaos and you now have the free-market system. I only pray that the free market of ideas is just as vital.