I think I’ve made it sufficiently clear that I am a misanthrope,  especially in regard to misguided academics who believe they can “change the world” without ever having been a part of it.   It is easy for an enclaved oligarchy to make pronouncements and policies from high atop the ivory tower, but far more difficult to make utopia happen where the rubber meets the road.  Karl Marx couldn’t do it and Lenin and Stalin couldn’t do it either.  Hitler’s “Thousand Year Reich” lasted thirteen years- and we all know where the Nazis and their supposed master race ended up.  Forced collectivism fails whether it comes from the far left or the far right.  If the current crop of Marxists in our current government, from Obama on down, would bother to study history instead of creating fantasy revisionist versions of it, they would realize a very huge, very inconvenient truth: Socialism, Communism, Marxism, Nazism, whatever “ism” you want to use for forced collectivism- does NOT work and only leads humanity to Godlessness and evil.

Orwell (himself a former socialist) was eerily correct in his observations on forced collectivism and it sort of creeps me out to think about it.  In 1984 it was all about surveillance- Big Brother was watching you every day all the time no matter what you’re doing.   Big Brother made sure you woke up, went to work, stayed productive, that you ate when and what you were supposed to, exercised when you were supposed to, procreated when you were supposed to, etc. ad nauseam.  I think Orwell would have been horrified by how true his prognostications have become.  Today we have surveillance cameras watching freaking traffic lights to make sure the red-light violators are duly fined.  I don’t doubt that all of us are on camera at least for part if not all of our days, and for what purpose?

If security is the idea, perhaps to the honest there is a fleeting thought of having one’s crime captured on tape that acts as a deterrent, but surveillance usually only provides a record of the violence or offense that has already occurred.  In my mind there is just as much crime, but now we get to see it happen and watch like the secret sadistic voyeurs we all are deep down.  It is probably not to my credit that I have some sort of pathological desire to watch this stuff after it is captured on tape, but I freely admit TruTV is one of my favorite channels. 

I say it every year around this time- the butt end of winter is intensely depressing.  This year has been especially depressing with all the farking snow and the dearth of sunlight (even more than normal) these past few weeks.  I need to schedule myself some unscheduled just plain fart off time to do whatever, whenever.  I say it but I am really crappy at actually doing it- a planned hiatus as it were.  I would ideally like to take a week or so and just disappear but that is not really feasible because I really don’t want to leave the dogs alone with Jerry that long. 

Even an afternoon of complete oblivion to the world time would be helpful- turn off the freaking phone, TV and the rest of the distractions of life and just sit down and shut up. 

Of course some good old fashioned night-driving would be good for clearing the head and making way for restoration of the soul.  I don’t know why I feel closer to God when I drive alone at night but I just do.  There is something spiritual about the unplanned, unstructured night-drive.