THOUGHTS ON FREEDOM, AND RESPECT FOR THE DIFFERENT, AND LARRY McMURTRY HAVING BEEN RIGHT ALL ALONG: Ace of Spades writes, “It has only been in the past couple of years, watching the full force of government melded, fascistically, with the social power of the elite class that I’ve begun remembering: ‘Hey, didn’t that old Larry McMurtry article [in TNR in response to the Clinton Administration’s assault on Waco] talk about the American habit of spitefulness and naked anger towards Weirdos who are Different…?’”

About 50 times in the past two years, I’ve thought to myself: “Yup, Larry McMurtry was right, and I didn’t listen.”

Today was another Larry McMurtry day for me, as I witnessed, yet again, the pure glee of vindictively enforcing rules against persons considered different and offensive.

Well, I looked up the article. I was shocked to see it’s actually still available online.

So if you want to read it, it’s here.

I recommend it.

Larry McMurtry was right. People are far too quick to become emotionally angry towards, and leap to violent means of coercion, against the Strange, against the Outcast, against the Different.

And we shouldn’t be doing that in America. This is not Germany; we have rules because we need rules. We do not have rules just because we love the rules themselves, and we love inflicting them on people.

Well, maybe a lot of the time we do.

But we shouldn’t.

Read the whole thing.