Thomas Wictor

My mother CeeCee Lower Wictor was a rebel. Her rebellion took the form of quietly, politely, and very gently refusing to conform to society’s expectations of what a Mexican-American woman born in 1928 was supposed to be. She and I never got along—until the last three years of her life. Then I became her closest confidant. What she found most disturbing was groupthink. One of her heroes was George Orwell, a man she idolized for his fearlessness in calling out deranged authoritarianism. I didn’t join Twitter until after Mom had died. She would’ve been horrified at the tweets I receive.

In the past two weeks now I’ve been sent messages that twenty years ago I would’ve thought were satirical.

What you teach your children is everybody’s business. He used the word “indoctrinate,” which is ironic because this was the most indoctrinated collectivist I’ve ever encountered in my life. None of my sarcasm penetrated. When I told him that we needed a government-appointed arbiter who would determine everything that was permissible to teach your kids, he agreed.

Then there was this.

It was not possible to communicate with that person, because he refused to accept the notion that wanting to outlaw religion is a militant idea. To him it was perfectly reasonable.

He and the other guy are British. Here’s what’s going on in Scotland, part of what we still call Great Britain.

For far from being a land of freedom-yearning Bravehearts, Scotland in the 21st century is a hotbed of the new authoritarianism. It’s the most nannying of Europe’s nanny states. It’s a country that imprisons people for singing songs, instructs people to stop smoking in their own homes, and which dreams of making salad-eating compulsory. Seriously. Scotland the Brave has become Scotland the Brave New World…

Introduced in 2012 by the Scottish National Party [SNP], the largest party in Scotland the Brave New World and author of most of its new nanny-state laws, the [Offensive Behaviour at Football] Act sums up everything that is rotten in the head of this sceptred isle. Taking a wild, wide-ranging scattergun approach, it outlaws at soccer matches “behaviour of any kind,” including, “in particular, things said or otherwise communicated,” that is “motivated (wholly or partly) by hatred” or which is “threatening” or which a “reasonable person would be likely to consider offensive.”

Even blessing yourself at a soccer game in Scotland could lead to arrest. Catholic fans have been warned that if they “bless themselves aggressively” at games, it could be “construed as something that is offensive,” presumably to non-Catholic fans, and the police might pick them up. You don’t have to look to some Middle Eastern tinpot tyranny if you want to see the state punishing public expressions of Christian faith—it’s happening in Scotland…

And then there’s the authoritarian icing on the cake, if Scotland will forgive such an obesity-encouraging metaphor: the SNP’s Children and Young People Act. This Act plans to assign a Named Person, a state-decreed guardian, to every baby born in Scotland, in order to watch him or her from birth to the age of 18.

Due to come into force in August 2016, the Named Person initiative is truly dystopian. Once, it was only abandoned or orphaned children who became charges of the state; now, all Scottish children will effectively be wards of the state under a new, vast system of, in essence, shadow parenting.

That British Twitter user wasn’t kidding. He approves of the government taking over the job of parenting. It’s why all my sarcasm didn’t register.

He thought I was serious.

This is such a pathetically cretinous mindset that I’m embarrassed that I’d have to point out the obvious: The government—being made up of people—is as fallible as you are, and by its very nature tends to screw things up. Those who go into government service don’t tend to be the most flexible of citizens.

Have you been following the US-Iran nuclear negotiations? Our president and Secretary of State tell us that we’ve prevented Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Well, here’s what Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said about the negotiations.

If the question is posed to me: ‘Are you for or against the latest nuclear negotiations,’ I would answer that I’m neither in favor nor opposed to it, since nothing has happened yet… What has happened until now, does not guarantee the very principle of agreeing, nor negotiations ending in an agreement and not the substance of such an agreement. It does not even guarantee that these negotiations will end in an agreement. Therefore, it does not make any sense to congratulate.

He says there’s no deal. And he says something else.

Instant annulment of all sanction is one of the demands of our officials… This issue is very important, and the sanctions must all be completely removed on the day of the agreement… Should the removal of the sanctions be related to a process, the foundation of the negotiations would be senseless, since the goal of the negotiations was to remove the sanctions… One must absolutely not allow infiltration of the security and defense realm of the state on the pretext of inspection[s], and the military authorities of the state are not - under any circumstance - allowed to let in foreigners to this realm under the pretext of inspection, or stop the country’s defense development.

The 5+1 nations say that Iran has agreed to having the economic sanctions lifted gradually, while the Iranian Supreme Leader says they must be lifted the day Iran signs an agreement. While the 5+1 nations have announced that Iran agrees to inspections, Iran will not allow inspection of its military sites.

Government bureaucrats are too incompetent and uncaring protect us against state sponsors of terrorism seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. These same bureaucrats know best how we should live our lives. They’re going to save us from everything double-plus ungood. Except for death by nuclear weapons.

And not only that, the president of the United States is so pathologically, psychotically petty that as he sells out his country to terrorists, he takes a swipe at the Prime Minister of Israel for recognizing the very real threat that Iran poses.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s illustration.

The White House tweet on the deal that Iran says doesn’t exist.

Imagine the catastrophic illness of the mind that personalizes geopolitics so rabidly that it reacts with venomous rage to opposing viewpoints.

Your timing was impeccable, Mom.