IN THE COMICS

Two quick points here.

First: if you haven’t seen the season opener of the animated cartoon show “South Park” I can recommend it to you. “South Park” is an irreverent but insightful cartoon look at the adventures of a bunch of 4th graders in the fictional Colorado town of South Park. In this new episode, a couple of them are suddenly ‘proven’ to be ‘sex addicts’ – and the Feds and even the President and a lot of those super-Swat armed Federal police get in on the act. Members of the SO community will recognize a great deal as this show’s cheeky creators go after the madness in matters sex-offensual.

In today’s cartoon strip “Prickly City” the precocious little child who is one of the main characters continues to cope with Homeland Security’s Janet Napolitiano, who is apparently able to reach out of the girl’s computer screen and do some serious Nanny stuff.

In each of the four frames today, the computer-Napolitano proposes an excuse as to just why the little girl must obey: 1) “it’s for your own good”; 2) “we will make you safe”; 3) “resistance is futile”; 4) “ignore that last one if you know what’s good for you!”.

Of course, “resistance if futile” was the soul-chilling admonition of the unstoppable Borg in the TV show “Star Trek: Next Generation”; these robotified former-humans had been ‘assimilated’ into the Borg Collective and were going around the universe seeking more species of life to ‘assimilate’.

It’s nice to see how the Regulatory-Preventive State’s genuine operations, shorn of the blunting effect of ‘real’ and ‘serious’ reporting, leap out at you from a comic strip. And of course, before there was 9-11 and Homeland Security there was the Sex-Offense Mania.

Well, just a couple of thoughts to keep you cheered up.

As I said in Addendum 3 of my previous Post, my next Post will follow out the thought of applying Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign slogan – “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!” – to the Regulatory-Preventive State: something like “extremism in the defense of protection is no vice!”.

You may want to get a head-start and roll that around in your mind.