Tinfoil hattery; why we bother

Some times I wonder why I should care. I'm an Older American. No matter what is taken from me, I can reflect on a life more interesting than ordinary, probably even  "happier" than ordinary although that point is impossible to investigate. You see,  I lack the talent to know the state of happiness of any of my fellows, not one.

Certainly I'm as adept as anyone else at identifying and classifying apparent happiness as measured by the the usual  standards, the wherewithal to consume,   the crude wit to identify current fashion and conform,  the appearance of intensely satisfying personal relationships, and so forth. Just like Richard Cory who on that calm summer night went home and put a bullet through his happy head.

So, no.  Any man's opinion on the pattern of activity in another's neurons is as suspect as a politician's promise. I can know -- and probably only imperfectly -- the state of my own synaptic patterns which produce the range of contentment from a heartfelt smile when I am alone to the ugliest possible frown, also in solitude.

New Dog Libby knows when she's happy. Well-fed, fresh from a Frisbee romp, ears scratched, she is satisfied in the deepest sense of that term. Only a magical Disney epic could endow her with care for what sort of life her grandpuppies would have. This reveals a defining difference between Libby and the man who fills her bowl. He thinks of his posterity. Like any beast, she would find that preposterous. She is a prisoner of the instant moment. Her master and all his fellows are cursed with a notion of foresight, the belief that they can observe current patterns and extrapolate into the future.

It is the curse of despair and hope when I, at least, would often prefer a stick to chase, a banana split, and a sound ear-scratching as I drift into dreamless sleep.

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In this motley internet neighborhood of disorganized  (and unorganizable) libertarians and ancaps, no one is surprised at the staccato new reports of universal spying. Most are on record as simply assuming it exists, that it is destined to exist by the very nature of coercive power, that is, the Power  of the drones and command control over the 82nd Airborne, all the Marines, and millions of spies you never heard of, all charged with identifying Crimethink by invading private human thought.

I have no great-grandpuppies yet, but I probably will. With a bit of luck I'll cuddle them, and I'll certainly hope (the curse, again) they have choices in a world neither too brave nor too new, nor ruled by other Controllers of an Inner Party.