1984

A run-of-the-mill soothsayer would be thrilled to learn that any of their predictions had come true. George Orwell, on the other hand, would have been mortified to discover how perfectly his 1984 had hit the nail on the head.

Let us take inventory of only a few recent trends. We now live in a surveillance state, in which the far too cutely named “alphabet boys” track our every digital move. If you express a point of view that doesn’t pass a constantly changing litmus test then you may wake up to a braying mob forming at your doorstep. 

The English language is distorted on a daily basis to suit the whims of the most fanatical puritans. People volunteer to install cameras in their homes and carry microphones in their pockets. The media needn’t even try to appear objective any longer – to it, allegiance to a political party has become a point of pride. War is perpetual, servitude is inevitable, and history is being torn from its roots to make way for a new reality.

For all we know, Common Core math might soon teach kids that two and two make five. It already may, for all the sense we can make of it.

But we haven’t mired ourselves in an Orwellian hellscape quite yet. Though it gasps for air beneath the flabby buttocks of media blackouts and government censorship, we have still got our freedom of speech. As dearly as the government would like to abolish it, free men and women still have access to a massive arsenal with which to repel tyranny. (Other countries are not so fortunate.)

And we have still got our clothing. Whenever you wear a shirt from the Libertas Bella 1984 collection, you’re thumbing your nose at all the aspiring Big Brothers in our midst.