In what The Atlantic aptly describes as a “Soviet Style Punishment” Maryland school teacher and novelist, Patrick McLaw was arrested, his home and school searched by police, was suspended from his job, and has been forced to undergo an “emergency medical evaluation” because of a novel he wrote. Again, to be clear, this happened in Maryland, USA. Government officials did not like the content of the teacher’s novel – which is by definition a fictional story – and consequently totally turned his life upside down using the brute force of the state. He is currently at an undisclosed location and unable to travel, whatever that means. The press, by and large, seem rather unconcerned about whether Mr. McLaw is in fact under arrest or whether the First Amendment still applies in Maryland.
One wonders if the state’s central committee has already moved to strip Mr. McLaw of his party membership and booked him on the next train to the Gulag. One also hopes law enforcement officials in Texas would have better sense than this…