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Constant Peace Through Constant War
Orwell wrote, "When war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded." "War" can of course be replaced by "crime" or "terrorism" domestically. It all preys on fear and insecurity. Its why a wife might allow her husband to keep guns at hand in a house bursting with children. For security. And when a public official seeths with rage and indignance on TV these days, its usually over a leak to the press that makes it impossible to deny and disregard the erosion of the perceived privacies and freedoms of the American people by its stewards, the American Federal Government (and city and state government in the case of crime and terrorism). The rage and indignance shown by the public official is not about this erosion of privacy and freedom but rather the erosion of the perception -- of being exposed.