I'm 40 something, and I was old enough to remember perfectly when the debate broke out in my country about allowing cops to have speed radars, then to put fixed ones on the roads that take pictures of cars, then to have cameras recording open public spaces, then helicopters with special cameras that can see if you have your hands off the wheel or are looking at your cellphone from 300 meters above while flying at high speed, then to have tolls with cameras that scan your plate and your wind shield for a sticker that tells them if you paid for insurance this year or not and even if your car is authorized to enter the metro area surrounding the city or not (it's not if it's approx. 20 years old or more)...

And don't even get me started about the encroachment on telecommunications, internet, and banking privacy... completely gone and forgotten.

Every time, without fail, there is public uproar and people clearly express that they're against the new measure in polls. Nothing changes, the machine keeps going, relentless, with the certainty that people will submit and adapt, and submit again. And the same politicians that condemn these measure when they're in the opposition, never, not once, roll them back when they get to power. On the contrary, they pass new, more expansive ones.

Unfortunately no, there is no final punchline to this note. I'm not optimistic at all. The only way back to normalcy would be a consistent and persistent majority of the population voting adamantly to dismantle the monstrous State structure that has been superposed on them. But that will never happen, because those who have built it know that people value safety and comfort above personal responsibility and freedom, and they have built in plenty of mechanisms to bribe, cajole and threaten, as required to force each individual into submission.