American Stasi

The Mexicans won the battle of the Alamo. So how come we’re stuck with Texas?

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The latest news out of Texas is that it not only has the toughest anti-abortion law in the country, but that that undoubtedly-unconstitutional law has put in place (for at least what one hopes is only a brief moment) an unprecedented mechanism for the spying on and ratting on one’s neighbors. The state has turned enforcement of the law over to the general public. The law will allow any ordinary citizen to

bring a civil action against any person who: (1) performs or induces an abortion in violation of this subchapter; (2) knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion . . . .*

The state has taken its famous state song to heart: “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You.” What Texas has done here is to introduce the Culture of Snitch. And a capitalist one at that—for a successful snitcher will receive $10,000 and legal costs. 

Jeannie Suk Gersen, recently wrote in an on-line article on The New Yorker website:

In “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Hannah Arendt observed the early tendency of a totalitarian regime to draft private citizens to conduct “voluntary espionage,” so that “a neighbor gradually becomes a more dangerous enemy than officially appointed police agents.”**

Perhaps the most efficient state control of the populace by use of the citizens themselves was by the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (two-thirds of which name were lies)—East Germany, what was. That government established the Ministerium für Staatsicherheit (Ministry for State Security), colloquially known as the Stasi. 

After the collapse of the regime, members of the Stasi tried to destroy the files it had on individuals. But they did not succeed in getting rid of all records. As a result over the last thirty years or so,

researchers have been offering former citizens of East Germany the opportunity to view their personal Stasi file, a complicated rite of passage that often reveals that family members, friends or neighbors had reported their activities to the Stasi.***

“Family members, friends . . . neighbors” had all been co-opted into the Stasi snitch network. 

How soon will it be that citizens of the Lone Star State will fear the eyes of other Texans upon them—even their family, friends, and neighbors?  

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*   https://www.nytimes.com/article/abortion-law-texas.html

**   https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-manifold-threats-of-the-texas-abortion-law

***   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/arts/design/stasi-archive-puzzle.html?searchResultPosition=1