The Measure Of Liberty

in any civil society is the vast space
between what we mildly abusively call
'the nanny state'-cars that beep to tell us
when to put our seat belts on, smoke alarms
that go off when the toaster burns the bread,
and other security devices that benefit their suppliers
more than their customers who are obliged to buy them
by insurance companies. These things are meant
to reassure us whilst taking money from us,
instead they diminish us, but leave us intact enough
to fear the thought police. The scary ones who watch us
when we don't know it, so our progress in forming ideas
is plotted far ahead of us by governments and others bent
on conditioning, who employ amoral agent provocateurs,
the better to head us off before we get near to making
the changes that would lessen our leaders' leadership.