I Shake My Head In Wonder

When I read George Orwell's 1984 years ago, there was a sort of detachment from the reality of the day that made it compelling but not unnerving.

Now, all these years later, I'm becoming a bit unnerved.

From "Public Secrets":

'The Guardian Goes Full Orwell’

I realize the UK’s Guardian is pretty far down toward the Left end of the scale, but does Commissar Simon Jenkins realize just how… dumb this headline and summary sounds?

"Free speech can’t exist unchained. US politics needs the tonic of order.

"If America is to speak in a way that heals, as Obama wishes, it needs the curbs and regulations that make freedom of expression real."

Read Orwell. Read 1984 to its end. Be afraid.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

FREE SPEECH CAN'T EXIST UNCHAINED.

When Do We Address The Real Problem?

To read about how Jared Lee Loughner's in-plain-sight madness played out in a Safeway parking lot in Tucson last Saturday is to look out a window upon the violent, demented world of Cho Seung-hui.  They were - so to speak - of a mind.  A deeply insane mind.  Minds so warped that, in both cases, everyone around them knew they were crazy.  Frighteningly crazy.

Yet no one did anything about it.

And dozens of innocent people are dead because those coming in contact knew nothing about how to deal with the lunacy.

Next on that list of lunatics gone terribly wild?

Tucson Shooting Survivor Arrested for Issuing Death Threat to Tea Partier at ABC Town Hall

We can have that debate about guns if you want. Again.

But we'd better start a discussion at some point about what a civilized society needs to do with those who walk among us who are certifiably nuts.

Until then, all the anguish in the world isn't going to change anything.