I understand why people say things like this. It reminds me of highschool where there was an ad on TV reminding us that if we slept with someone without protection we were essentially sleeping with all of their past sexual partners - we could get HIV if we slept with someone who slept with someone who slept with someone with HIV.
It’s a sort of softened warning for those who will deny the obvious truth. You get HIV by sleeping with someone who has HIV, and there is someone in your peergroup with HIV. No one wanted to listen to that last bit, so they used euphemisms to try to convince us to use protection.
This what if scenario about the future where a totalitarian government comes in and uses your surveillance state against the people isn’t really a what if, it’s an outcome of incremental decisions being made now. The fascists already have power, they are just considerably less murderous than some historical fascists so we give them a pass.
But I don’t know if English-speaking nations will ever elect leaders who actually look out for the best interests of the people. One wonders if white people are just predisposed to be serfs.
[And now, in the style of Stewart Lee’s routine about Top Gear, I will look directly into the camera and say, “See, with that last bit, I was doing a parody of a certain racist way of thinking.”]
