>I occasionally run into political hyperbole of the type in which the present world is just like that of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR ... I believe we're nowhere near that reality<

Well said, Dave. Yes, BOTH political extremes trot out that trope when they're upset; it's as overused as comparisions to Hitler and the Nazis. But as you say, we're just not there.

For all the myriad faults of the modern world, we - especially in the developed West - just have too much freedom for that to be the case.

Monsterkid since the Kennedy Era