Orwell Gone Wild

The Left went over the top nuts with the Patriot Act. The government might look at your library check outs! Like these knuckleheads use the library. That was tossed out pretty quickly anyway. Then they objected to overseas calls by suspected terrorists being monitored. Then they objected to suspected terrorists' bank accounts being monitored. Of course being pro-Islamofacist they don't want the government tracking the activities going on inside of mosques either. 

Don’t hear any caterwauling by the Left with the Obama administration’s latest attempt to violate the rights of Americans. There’s a case being appealed by the Obama Justice (?) Department regarding a GPS device that was put on a drug dealer’s car. It was done without a warrant. The  Justice (?) Department is saying that there is no expectation of privacy in public. There may be a small problem with that. I’m no lawyer, though I’m sure I have more sense that most do; if the car goes on private property, then it’s no longer in a public place. Tracking without a warrant? Truly?

The Left apparently has no problem with any citizen being tracked by the government. They only object when suspected terrorists and their Islamofacists supporters are tracked. I'm sure too that if a Republican were president, they would object just because of that, but a fellow Statist and his Party are in power, so it’s okay.   

I just read a trilogy (highly recommend), The Fourth Realm Trilogy, an uber updated Orwellian view of society. It mixes in mysticism and sword fighting, gun fights and martial art heroics to make it fun, but the theme of the book is how we are all monitored by being on the “grid” and how hard it is to stay outside the “Vast Machine”.

From a speech given by our hero:

“Some of you have already become aware of this new system. One morning, you wake up, look around, and realize that surveillance cameras are everywhere. It feels like you’ve stepped into a massive electronic prison. 

“But the cameras are only a small part of the Vast Machine. Every major government in the world is reading your e-mail messages and listening to your phone calls with scanning programs that react to certain words and phrases. Security agencies and corporations monitor your bank and credit card activity. Your cell phones and your car generate data about your location and activities.

“We can usually see the cameras, but the rest of our prison is invisible. Sophisticated software programs acquire information from your purchases, your work activity, and your medical files to create a shadow image of your life. Separate databases are being combined into a total information system, and this data will be saved forever.

“Many people will gladly trade their personal privacy for small improvements in their lives. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ proclaims the honest citizen. ‘So why should I be worried?’”

Why indeed. Given governments penchant for tyranny, well…. ObamaCare centralizes every citizen’s health information into one federal  database. In the UK it’s been suggested that employers send employees paychecks directly to the government, and they in turn deposit into the employee’s bank account what’s left after all the deductions.

This current administration, Democrats, Leftists, Statists, aren’t objecting to this; they’re in power. Obama and his Statist enforcers are working hard to get as much freedom crushing legislation passed as quickly as they can because they know this may be their last chance for a while before they get another shot to turn us into the tyranny they envision.

After the election this November when they are tossed out of power, you’ll again hear screams about their  rights to privacy being taken away. Of course, what they’re really objecting to is their perceived right to tyranny taken away.

By the way, the trilogy referred to above was written by John Twelve Hawks.  

Sometimes Words Are Meaningless

The clichéd phrase is "words mean something". I'm beginning to think that sometimes words don't mean anything.  Sometimes people losing an argument, or trying to bend you to seeing their exclusive reality as the true reality, just put words together that are meaningless.

I saw two such events these past few days. John Holdren, Obama's science adviser, said a couple days ago during a speech in Oslo that the term "global warming" has lost its shine, and we're now supposed to use the term "climate disruption". What could that possibly mean? This is 'newspeak' gone mad, as mad as Obama's language police replacing the word “terrorism" with "man caused disasters".  Orwell was too brilliant to come up with something so stupid.

The other venture into post Orwellian newspeak evolves out of the current debate among Democrats about the "Bush tax cuts"; whether to extend them or not. If the tax cuts are extended, then they become "Obama's tax cuts". Say what? Here's the quote from Pelosi: "What I believe the American people deserve is a tax cut for the middle class." "And without getting into procedure and timing and process, what we're going to do is to say at the end of the day, the extension of the Obama middle-income tax cuts will take place, and that's what I have to say on the subject."

Let’s see, extend someone else’s legislation so things remain the same, the stick your name to it and call it a change, and take credit for the change that isn’t a change.

Orwell and I say, “What?”

Quotable Quote

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. ... We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" --George Orwell, "1984"