A Sad Reminder Of Our Times...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/bovard/bovard41.html

"I visited the Tower of London in May on an overcast, dreary Friday afternoon. The home of so many famous executions and king-approved murders is kept in spiffy shape. The tour guide – a former British sergeant-military wearing a large “Beefeater”-style hat – regaled listeners with tales of beheadings gone wrong, drunks with axes hacking away at half-dead corpses, never quite getting a clean cut. Some of the lines of stone near the castle were remnants of the Roman conquest of England. The castle itself was begun in earnest in 1066, just after the Norman conquest of England. Within a few centuries, the castle went from being a symbol of foreign occupation to a symbol of legitimacy. By overshadowing the London landscape, the Tower put fear into the heart of anyone who considered resisting royal authority – no matter how murderous the king’s henchmen became." ....

"There was never any such tower in American lore. There was no notorious place where the enemies of the regime were beheaded or murdered behind closed doors. There was no Tower of London in part because America was born a nation under the rule of law.

There was no Tower of London because the Founders made sure that the crime of treason was very narrowly defined. They had seen how the crime of “treason” had mushroomed time and again in English history, creating the pretext to slaughter those who protested oppression.

There was no Tower of London in this nation because torture was not part of the American canons. Gross abuses occurred, especially of slaves and Indians. But Americans prided themselves on having left barbarism behind them when they emigrated from Europe."

Too bad such things don't last. And too bad just because we don't have an official Tower Of D.C., folks think our country is beyond such things.