Cowboy 85: “It would take a confused and self-loathing security sceme like in Seattle to defy common sense and eye-to-eye human interaction.”

The death of common sense and the rise of intelligent insanity is a pre-requisite for totalitarian government.

“Those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is; in general the greater the understanding the greater the delusion; the more intelligent the less sane… The heresy of heresies was common sense.” George Orwell – 1984

Another essential ingredient for totalitarian government is widespread public ignorance and stupidity.

“Crimestop…includes the power of not grasping analogies; of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc (Socialist Principles of Oceania), and of being bored or rebelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop in short means protective stupidity… The world view of the Party imposed its self most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm because it left no residue behind; just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.” George Orwell – 1984