Had an interesting conversation this morning with a cab driver named Abdule Shaq who lived under communism in Afghanistan and came to the US about 40 years ago.
We commiserated on the state of the world, and got to talking about DC. So many police, and different agencies with police, most don't even know the law but have become empowered to harass people over just about anything because there are so many law. We talked about how DC has changed in the last few years, getting more restrictive; and how we remember air travel before the TSA.
He said that it all kind of feels like what he experienced under communism where police would toss some Marijuana over a wall, knock on your door and then go immediately find what they planted, just so they had a pretext to arrest you.
And he lamented that as all these things get worse, it happens so gradually most people just accept it.
He was surprised and sad that when he got to America, it felt like it lived up to his idea of being the land of the free, but now it increasingly feels like what he experienced under communism.
I agreed.
It's incredible how many times I have had interesting conversations with cab drivers over the years. So many of them are immigrants with incredible stories and interesting thoughts. And yet, I feel like most people proactively don't want to meet them. If you're one of those people, you're missing out.