1984 and George W. Obama

“You are a slow learner, Winston.”
“How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”
“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”

– George Orwell, 1984

1984 was published 64 years ago–64 years ago almost to the day when news began to seep into the nation’s consciousness that “The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon… under a top secret court order issued in April.” And with dusk on that same day, more Orwellian news stamped its imprint on the nation, the NSA and FBI are data mining and collecting data, and the collection is “…directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”

Hmmm.. NSA seizing American phone records. FBI and NSA collecting data directly from servers of privately owned companies on who? Americans? Well, the Washington Post reports that Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) “…repeatedly asked the NSA to estimate the number of Americans whose communications had been incidentally collected, and the agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, insisted there was no way to find out.”

No way to find out if our own government is spying on us. Who’s the President again?

So, what to say about all this?

Part of me wants to pour to the brim two Litre Steins of Schadenfreude, place both in my deluxe-turbo drinking helmet, and gulp them down so profusely that I make a spectacle out of myself. Indulging ‘til inebriated in the angst-laden, lefty progressive rags demonstrating their apoplexy with headlines like “George W. Bush’s 4th Term” and “George W. Obama”, along with the creepy, morphed picture of the two.  Soaking in the sights of progressives and liberals alternately scratching their backsides and foreheads (and sometimes wondering which is which) with bewildered and nonplussed astonishment as they realize their guy is completely abusing his power a la Bush, even spying on them, fills me with endless amusement, rising to euphoria. Like the scene in Dumb and Dumber, when Lloyd and Harry put blazing hot peppers on the villain’s sandwich, who then eats it and collapses to the floor. And then, right in his face, is Lloyd’s pointing finger, and he’s laughing his face off as the villain suffers an attack, “Ha ha ha ha ha!”  See the real guy you voted for?  All the hopey-changey stuff was hollow, rhetorical garbage designed to conceal the mendacious mountebank for what he is, and it worked.  So many were unable to recognize him as a simple pol even though he made promises he could not deliver and that, as Charles Ramsey says, is “a dead giveaway”.  He’s a self-serving politician who wants to fundamentally transform America and that includes spying on you, targeting you, and harassing  you.  Pretending otherwise is folly, as many on the left are finding out. Just ask the AP.

But like I said, part of me wants to do this, a very large part. Another part wants to sit back and be humble (too late?) and hold my tongue and hope or persuade others to see that this is what happens when government becomes a behemoth. Part of me just wants to watch with them as the giant pieces of functioning government fall off Leviathan like it contracted Leprosy. It’s become so bloated and corrupt that the corruption has corroded the actual functioning part, if there was any in the first place.  This is the government you’ve been waiting for and the cold gloved finger of Obama Care has yet to be inserted into our lives.  Wait till that happens.  That’ll work out great!

And yet, there will remain dead-ender lefties and progressives still wanting more government.  Ignoring that this one is enormous and can’t be managed at its current size, as those in charge admit and as evidenced by the parade of scandals, they’ll continue to call for more government as a remedy for more government. What more can go wrong, if they have their way? I guess we’ll see.

Happy Anniversary, Winston.