Our brave new world

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. 

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. 

Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. 

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. 

In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

The object of power is power

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. 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 you begin to understand me.”

― George Orwell, 1984

Blah blah blah blah

There is a sad but true one-liner about folks who engage in the power struggle euphemistically named public service.

How do you know when a politician is lying? His/her lips are moving.

These people are not involved in any sort of activity designed to make life easier for the common man, even when they earnestly believe with all of their heart and soul that they are.

The heart and soul are freed when the harness and reins are removed. Government exists to restrict freedom. It has no other function. That's why it's called governance, from the Latin to direct, to rule, to guide.

They do not trust you to live your own life responsibly and free. Oh, perhaps they do trust you personally - but those other people, who need help from above to rule their lives - those other people are why we must have ever-increasing, ever-intrusive government.

Their idea of freedom is most people's idea of slavery.

The truth about bigots

The most racist remarks usually come from so-called liberals regarding so-called conservatives of color.

The most sexist remarks usually come from so-called liberals regarding so-called conservative women.

The most vicious bigots claim to celebrate tolerance and diversity at every turn.

True believers in the collective cannot bear it when individuals think for themselves and hold different beliefs. They must shout down such individuals of any color or sex, but when those individuals are of color or female, they come in for a special kind of hatred.

The preachers of collective tolerance are the most intolerant among us.

My climate change prediction

The Green movement had its roots in a spinoff from the German Socialist Party of a few decades ago, because the party was not being aggressive enough. Socialism being what it is, that's why every solution offered by green folks involves greater restrictions on personal liberty and increased government regulation – because socialists believe common people left to themselves are too irresponsible to be free, and the state knows better. That's just how these people think.

My prediction is that the Earth will keep breathing. Natural cycles will continue much the same as they have done all my lifetime, and across the lifetime of the planet. Some decades it will get warmer, some decades (like this one) it will get colder. Lakes and rivers will hit all-time lows, and a few years later they will hit all-time highs.

Some people worship Gaia, insisting the planet is a living creature. Living creatures breathe; we go through cycles. We inhale; we exhale. The bacteria in my stomach rarely make a difference, but when they do, the impact rarely lasts very long. A bacterium may believe its actions can make a life-changing difference, but it would delude itself; its footprint on my body is just not that dramatic.

So it's ironic that the people most inclined to believe in Gaia act as if the Earth is a machine that behaves linearly – in the 1970s the cry was that a new Ice Age is near, and in the 1990s it was always going to keep getting warmer. (P.S. Government intervention was their solution both times.)

Climate change as a political issue is not about saving the planet; it is about gathering control of our lives into the hands of an elite few.

One for you, 19 for me

A friendly reminder about the lengths to which the state will go: The Beatles song "Taxman" is not fiction. The British government taxed very high income-makers like John, Paul, George and Ringo at a rate of 95 percent. And in the USSA, the top rate in those "progressive" times was 70 percent.

Fortunately the beneficent government redistributed the income in such an equitable way that poverty was eliminated in both countries. Oh, you missed that? Odd; so did the poor.