The latest issue of the Bob Dylan fan magazine ISIS includes an item by Ronnie Keohane detailing a discovery she made regarding Bob Dylan’s 2003 film “Masked and Anonymous.”
If you’ve seen that film (and what Dylan fan or aficionado of the art of movie-making has not?) you’ll recall that there is a radio preacher who is heard repeatedly, as if in the background. At one point he’s heard saying this:
The only power the government has is to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, you make them. You make so many things a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? You pass laws that can’t be observed or enforced or even objectively interpreted. You create a nation of lawbreakers and then you cash in on the guilt. That’s the system, that’s the game. Once you understand that you’ll sleep a lot easier.