Thank You For My "Freedom,"


An Open Letter To The Deputy Warden


By George

I want to thank the Deputy Warden. He claims to be a veteran. It may be true. He boasts to having been one of the invaders who's aggression slaughtered Vietnam. Proudly, he crows about how people should be "fragged" for such sins as insolence and being critical of authority.

"Frag" seems to refer to the practice of using a fragmentation grenade to murder a fellow invader, usually an officer. I don't think that the Deputy is very well educated so, if he really was in Asia, he wasn't likely an officer himself.

To hear the Deputy, he thinks that it's a terrific solution to "frag" everyone he doesn't like. Now he's in "corrections." He doesn't seem to like prisoners very well. His "fragging" mentality seems to have carried over, even to have become more opinionated.

Recently, the Deputy explained the reason for the ruthless aggression in Vietnam. It seems that he wasn't really a part of a colonizing slaughter of an "inferior" race. The Deputy asserts that he fought the primitive yellow natives in his noble effort to protect my freedom of speech!

Thank you Deputy! Thank you for protecting my freedom of speech.

Frankly, I never realized that any of those illiterate peasants even knew I existed. You will be shocked to hear that I never realized that even one of the Vietnamese was trying to deprive me of my freedom of speech, or, indeed any of my freedoms. All this time I've thought that the valiant Vietnamese were struggling to get freedom for themselves from the savage domination of superpower invaders.

After doing me the enormous personal service of protecting my freedom of speech from the insolent Vietnamese freedom-fighters, the Deputy is indignant that I'm actually speaking out. In fact, the Deputy says that I'm "misusing" my freedom of speech. I'm writing things that he apparently doesn't like. I "almost" mentioned his name!

I wonder if he brought any fragmentation grenades home with him. I hope he remembers that I'm not an officer.

Surprisingly, I've never had any problem with any Vietnamese punishing me for my speech. The only problem that I've ever had was from the Deputy, or really his subordinates and the Department that he works for.

The Deputy's idea of what a "freedom" is must be very different from my idea. If I'm only allowed to write what the Deputy and his bosses approve of, that's not "freedom." If I get punished for what I say, that's not what I mean by freedom.

I'm starting to wonder if hoards of innocent yellow peasants died for nothing! Would the Deputy "frag" someone just for disagreeing with him?

The Department of Corrections is what's punished me for my speech, not the Vietnamese. The noble Deputy could do me another service by fighting in Pennsylvania to preserve my freedom of speech. I'd fight for his at least as hard as he fought for mine.


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