It is no exaggeration to say that we are living the first stages of an Orwellian nightmare.
Politicians, bureaucrats, and media of all stripes are acting as if George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is a how-to guide instead of a warning against the establishment of an oligarchical power that obliterates liberty, self-government, and truth itself.
- The Boston Globe and The Washington Post are engaged in altering and rewriting long-ago published stories in order to conform to present mores. This is literally the job performed by Orwell's protagonist Winston Smith.
- A Texas teenager turns his own father in to authorities for the "crime" of being present at the capitol on January 6. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, children working at the behest of the ruling party are enrolled in a group called the "Spies," and inform on parents who commit "thoughtcrime" or dare to merely speak ill of the ruling party.
- Flushed with power and arrogance, current members of Congress and former operatives of federal intelligence agencies speak of compiling blacklists and reprogramming or deprogramming their countrymen. Anyone who has read Nineteen Eighty-Four is rightly haunted by such sentiments and the horrifyingly vivid descriptions of the deprogramming process.
- An independent journalist in Vermont is seized upon by the FBI and taken from his home in handcuffs for creating politically-motivated memes.
The litany seems endless.
For supporters of the Convention of States movement, perhaps the most familiar exchange in Orwell's book occurs when Smith's interrogator and torturer (an Inner Party operative called O'Brien) reveals to Smith its motivation:
"We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power."
A more succinct mission statement could not be devised for what many have termed the "Uniparty" or "The Swamp" in Washington, D.C.
It encapsulates the mindset of the expansion and dominance of the federal government in direct contravention of the Constitution. That dominance is what COS intends to eradicate.
The COS resolution (SD 206) has been filed in the Massachusetts General Court. Now is the time for renewed action. Communicate often with your state representative and senator to urge support for SD 206 and a convention of states that will propose amendments that will circumvent Congress and limit the power of the Uniparty.
In this republic, power does not belong to the Uniparty or The Swamp. It belongs to a people not interested solely in power, but power for the good of others and the balance of limited government as envisioned and prescribed by our Founders.
But we must work to reclaim that power in our towns and in our state. We again have that opportunity in the General Court.
There is, ironically enough, a Chinese curse that warns "May you live in interesting times." To say the least, we live in interesting times.
But we have within our power the ability to halt the further slide into Nineteen Eighty-Four and a total federal oligarchy that blots out our hard-won liberty.
Is our republic not worth the effort?
