George Orwell, in his book Nineteen Eighty Four, talking of a few concepts I did not understand. First, was “duckspeak,” noted as being a compliment to your friends and an insult to your enemies - relentless quacking of propaganda.
Another was reality-control - deliberate, voluntary stupidity.
Today, I saw both in action.
I am trying, on another forum, to have a debate about mass surveillance in the UK, as well as the threat of totalitarianism. Do you know what I got?
Post after post of, “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear,” and spurious insults at me, saying I was “delusional,” that I was a “self-absorbed dreamer,” that I “must have something to hide” to question the government line on terrorism, or the threat of serious crime (I argued that what is in the media is not strictly true).
I saw it - duckspeak. The same propaganda lines which allow people to sink into placid ignorance and allow anything to be justified in the name of “security.”
They would not even abide my comments that freedoms and privacy are rights, not privilages, and that law-abiding people deserve these freedoms more than anyone. Nope - I was either mad or a criminal. 
Another said I obviously had too much time on my hands to think about all this - implying that “normal” people don’t think about it - and certainly never question it. There - voluntary stupidity.
I had a moment of pure existential angst. I can’t win - I can’t beat propaganda rot of the mind, or voluntary, blissful stupidity, or paranoid ignorance. And this is all without even mentioning the actual surveillance state that is the UK.
Orwellian totalitarianism might just have arrived, and I am totally depressed. Someone please confirm that I am not Winston Smith - that I have some kind of “Brotherhood?” 
have you not noticed one odd thing. What ever England does, for some odd reason the US has to try and copy, and visa versa. Its like there is this wierd umbilical cord between us.