I will not submit to a cabal who read George Orwell’s 1984 not as a terrifying warning, but as an instruction manual. Nor will I submit to the dictates of those who attempt to trample the right of free speech of others in the halls of government who are warning us about the looming tyranny. I refer to those sons of liberty who, as Camus wrote, “are not all legitimate or to be admired. Those who applaud it only when it justifies their privileges and shout nothing but censorship when it threatens them are not on our side.”
Matthew May
September 30, 2013
I Will Not Comply
[H/T Tyler Durden.
With the NSA listening to and recording every phone conversation, reading and storing every email message, the post office taking pictures of every envelope, and the government mandating the details of relationships (with insurance companies), police officers told to not wear their uniform and gun onto school campuses (H/T Ry), and people seriously advocating absolutely crazy stuff, how can we not think we are in a Orwellian dystopian universe? The Jews in 1939 Germany couldn’t really believe it was happening. It was crazy to believe people would do the things they were doing. It just couldn’t be real. But it was real. And it’s real now. Believe it.—Joe]
Never cared for Orwell while in Highschool (mainly cuz I figured if the public school system wanted me to read a book, it was bound to be as dull and insipidly incomprehensible as possible…not like those awesome Battlemech books I’d recently discovered!), but after having recently re-read “1984”, I have to admit…the dude was scary. Not in a Stephen King I-tripped-out-on-acid-and-jalapeno-burritos-last-night-and-heres-my-dreams scary way….in a 1939 Jews oh-holy-crap-whats-going-on-can-it-get-any-worse kinda way.
I’ve found that there is a lot of stuff I had to read in HS that I appreciate a lot more now than I did then. Some of it I’m sure is just maturity, and some of it was the teachers. But also some of it is how much nearer these things are to possible. When you read a book and everything seems outlandish and absurd, it’s hard to take it seriously enough to learn from. When it seems like it’s ripped from today’s headlines, it much more relevant, and therefore more riveting.
The electronic medical record portion of obamacare has vast potential for abuse. When all your healthcare info is on a computer and it gets beamed from doctor to doctor or hospital whenever you have an appt, that’s a huge data mine for our NSA overlords.