“As a new video emerged capturing gunshots and yelling in a fatal shooting in Maine involving federal immigration officers, the state’s governor called on Congress to immediately reform and rein in ICE ‘before more families are robbed of a loved one.’” — ABC News
I’ve been hearing a lot of talk lately about abolishing the Thought Police, and frankly, it’s the sort of unserious political discourse that has sadly inundated our everyday lives. Everyone wants to tear down institutions these days. Nobody wants to BUILD. Nobody has any respect for tradition anymore. The Thought Police have existed for over forty years now. They’re right there with the Parthenon, the pyramids, and New Coke.
Some of our greatest cultural achievements are younger than the Thought Police. The Segway is younger than the TP. The Slanket. The Furby. Can you imagine the modern world without those marvels of civilization? Of course not. Then how come the Thought Police doesn’t get the same consideration? If we start just dismantling every government institution all willy-nilly, pretty soon we’ll be living in a country where agencies are expected to justify their existence instead of simply continuing to exist because they already exist.
Critics also love pointing out how the Thought Police weren’t even part of Oceania’s original governmental structure, having been established during a national security reorganization following the bombings by The Brotherhood. You know what I call that? Modernization. Progress. That is textbook adapting to the times, which is also why I’m glad that the Thought Police have since expanded beyond their original mandate.
Agencies that remain narrowly focused on things like “goals” or “the law” or “the Constitution” demonstrate a shocking lack of initiative. The Thought Police understood this better than anyone. They looked at the problem of policing thoughts and, boldly and BRAVELY, asked themselves whether facial expressions, private conversations, body language, suspicious silences, and generally giving off a bad vibe also deserved government attention.
Yes, much has been made of the fact that the Thought Police seem to devote a worrisome amount of attention to perfectly ordinary citizens instead of to hardened enemies of the state. I don’t even know how to respond to that without treating my imaginary opponent in this debate like a literal baby. Goo-goo-gaga. Does that address your concerns? Do you want a bottle? Then listen up, kiddo: Ordinary citizens make up the overwhelming majority of the population. From an efficiency perspective, concentrating on citizens simply makes more fiscal sense. If every law enforcement agency focused only on wrongdoers, there would be no reason to grow them or expand their role. And infinite growth is not only possible, it’s also what all government agencies should strive for.
There has likewise been a lot of manufactured outrage over the agency operating discreetly, often not identifying themselves even amid arrests and interrogations. This obsession with visibility is deeply worrying. Some things should stay hidden. Would you want glass walls around public toilets? Should department stores’ changing rooms have streaming cameras inside them? You see my point. Plus, the uncertainty of who the Thought Police are and what they are doing creates a healthier society. Citizens become more polite/paranoid, which are basically the same thing. Gossip goes down, people stop sharing their inane opinions with you, and life generally improves when neighbors start worrying if asking to borrow your pruning shears could be interpreted as domestic terrorism.
Finally, the would-be killers of the Thought Police assure us that all the functions performed by the agency could be transferred elsewhere, under the jurisdiction of people who don’t treat the Constitution as a series of buzzkill suggestions. This breathtaking optimism reveals just how little the public understands the ultimate call of the TP. The Thought Police are but a humble participant in Big Brother’s much larger and more noble undertaking: the creation of a government so attentive, so involved, and so lovingly present that citizens never have to suffer the anxiety of wondering whether anyone is watching. You can slap a different badge on them and give their “We can do whatever we want” warrants a new letterhead, but that won’t change our day-to-day reality.
So, no, the Thought Police should remain exactly where they are. Not because they’re perfect but because they have become an institution. After all, true institutional greatness is measured not by whether a program works but by how difficult it’d be to get rid of it. And don’t you want to live in a world where that kind of tick-like perseverance gets rewarded?
