A great letter. We people shouldn't explain politicians why we have rights.
"I hear similar questions quite often
- Why is it so big issue? Who needs it, and what for, anyway?
Such answer usually provokes negative response. I guess that everybody understands why. It basically says
- I don’t need to explain to you why it should be banned. It goes without question. But if you can convince me that you need it, then I might give you an exceptional permission.
I assume that nobody likes that.
But to understand HOW MUCH we Eastern Europeans dislike it, you would have to actually spend some years in totalitarian state which treats people in this way – deciding for the people what’s good for them, what they need, what they should and shouldn’t be allowed to have or do.
We got four decades of it, and we remember it very well. We are not ‘well-established democracy’. We are democracy that’s so young that most of us still remember its beginning – and before. It started when we said “enough” and refused to obey laws which said that state has power to decide how we should live our lives.
Personal liberty, won by this disobedience, is today one of our core values."