SECTION IV
The Transition
Can we ring the bells backwards? Can we unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? There is a March of Science. But who shall beat the drums for its retreat?
âCharles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia
Introduction
The Digital Age and Which Digit Itâs Giving Us
It is becoming, or has become already, a digital world. Which digit is it giving us? All of themâballed into two fists. Weâre going to be hit hard with a punch right in the privates.
A digital world does a lot of things, most of which Iâm un-enthusiastic about. But what Iâm least enthusiastic about is the way a digital world enables a Security-and-Surveillance State.
Weâre on our way to a new life âWhere Everybody Knows Your Nameââand your Social Security number, computer passwords, financial status, debit card PIN, credit rating, physical address, present whereabouts, etc.
Everything about us will be seen and known. And my greatest fear is that when we arrive in this place of universal visibility and ubiquitous public knowledge of all our thoughts and deeds, weâll like it.
A Security-and-Surveillance State that is all-seeing and all-knowing could replace religion. Something will. According to the Pew Research Center on Religion and Public Life, only about half of Americans age eighteen to twenty-nine are certain that they believe in any kind of God at all.
Central to the concept of God (or Gods) in every faith is that He (or They) knows (or know) exactly what weâre up to at all times and why. This should be terrifying, but most people who are religiousâmyself includedâseem more comforted than frightened by Godâs omniscience. Our original Security-and-Surveillance State was a state of graceâa oneness with God. Maybe a oneness with TSA will be just as good. Most Americans pass through airport security more often than they go to church.
Comfort with Security-and-Surveillance runs even deeper in the human psyche than religion. Thereâs Mom.
She always knew what I was thinking. âDonât you even think about it,â sheâd say about the fresh-baked cookies before Iâd caught a whiff of them. And she always knew what I was doing. She had eyes in the back of her head. Not only did she have eyes in the back of her head, she also had all the other eyes of all the other moms in the neighborhood. Iâd come home from a jolly Saturday afternoon tormenting cats and tipping over birdbaths with my pals, and, before I was halfway up the front walk, Iâd hear Mom: âNo TV for a week!â
It hardly came as a shock when they taught us in Sunday school that âGod is watching.â Mom had gotten there before Him. Yes, God mightâin some future too distant to be imaginedâsend us to hell. But He never smacked us on the butt with a wooden kitchen spoon. Much less did God wait until our fathers got home and tell them our sins so that we got a real whopping.
Plus we were also taught in Sunday school that âGod is Love.â And that He would âforgive us our trespasses,â certainly including the foray into Mrs. Pulaskiâs yard where we cracked the head off her garden gnome with our Wham-O slingshots. And Mom, of course, was nothing but love. Can anything be as secure as a motherâs love? Whatever weâd done, she got over it. Dad, too. By the time heâd had his second highball heâd forgotten all about giving us a real whopping and was out in the kitchen saying to Mom, âBoys will be boys âŠâ
Thenâto further muddle our attitudes about Security-and-Surveillanceâthere was Santa Claus.
You better watch out, you better not cry,
You better not pout, Iâm telling you why.
Santa Claus is coming to town.
Heâs gonna find out whoâs naughty and nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He knows when youâre awake.
He knows if youâve been bad or good,
So be good for goodnessâ sake.
And yet, after 364 days of my being a peevish brat, the Erector Set was under the Christmas tree anyway.
Due to our instincts and our formative experiences, it is all too easy to confuse a Security-and-Surveillance State with Mom, God, and Santa Claus.
The U.S. government is Santa Claus. Federal government annual per capita spending is $21,875. Everybody in America gets almost 22 grand apiece. Meanwhile what the average taxpayer gives to the federal government is only $9,655 a year.
Making up the difference must keep those elves at the North Pole busy.
The U.S. government is also Mom. There are a multitude of âeat your vegetablesâ federal laws on the books, all of them intended to make us healthy and safe, to give us âSecurity.â
Iâm not talking about what really gives us security. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines go begging. (According to a DOD report, about 23,000 active-duty members of the armed services receive food stamps.)
Iâm talking about things like the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. The Act, as signed by President Nixon, was 39 pages of Whatâs-Good-for-You that spawned a myriad of federal regulations and bureaucracies. A PDF of the Occupational Safety and Health Administrationâs âField Safety and Health Manualâ is 265 pages long.
Which is barely a note under a refrigerator magnet by federal Whatâs-Good-for-You regulatory standards. The PDF for the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Serviceâs Food and Drug Administrationâs Public Health Service âFood Codeâ is 768 pages long. âDonât put that in your mouth!â
The government has a vast apparatus to secure us. And an even vaster apparatus to surveil us.
Itâs not just the CIA, NSA, FBI, and Homeland Security. When it comes to U.S. intelligence and investigative agencies, their name is legion:
(I have printed the following list in very small type so that you wonât read it all and experience a horrible fit of paranoia.)
But if the government wants to know our wickedest thoughts and most dastardly plans, none of this intelligence-gathering and investigation is necessary. Weâve posted those thoughts and plans on social media.
And if weâve followed through on our stupidest ideas and put them into idiotic action, then weâve got a video on YouTube with a million views.
Add our Social Media State to the Santa State and the Mommy State and weâve already arrived at the Security-and-Surveillance State.
We want everyone to know everything about us. (And to take care of everything for us while theyâre at it.) Even the most secretive terrorists canât resist the opportunity to gurgle and cooâor bawl and wailâto attract attention.
The Security-and-Surveillance State makes us feel like weâre the center of the universe again. It puts us back in the crib, without worry or responsibility. America used to need liberty and Fourth and Fifth Am...