In the excellent 2005 feature film adaptation of Josh Whedon's FIREFLY series, a Government agency uses a "serenity" drug to pacify the population of a planet in hopes of eliminating crime and violence. What they produce, instead, are beings so full of apathy and so uninterested in even the most basic details of their daily lives that they lay down wherever they are... and peacefully starve to death.
After discovering this horror perpetrated by a Government with, of course, the best of intentions, Ship's Captain Mal Reynolds vows to expose the horror and make sure Government can never do such a thing again.
He says....
"Sure as I know anything, I know this - They will try again. Maybe on another World, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now? Ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."
I was reminded of this quote when I read an article earlier this week about scientists who believe they can change people's opinions about religion and immigration (among other things) by blasting subjects' brains with a particular kind of magnetic pulse. The fact that the two opinions they sought to change in this "experiment" were belief in God and a belief in National Sovereignty tells me all I need to know about their politics.
Now perhaps the science behind this is complete and utter bullshit. But if it isn't... it's only a matter of time before someone, probably the same kind of person who wants RICO statutes brought to bear against anyone who does not believe that we need higher taxes to fight Global Warming, decides that this is a technology that needs to be used on Americans whose beliefs are not sufficiently Progressive... preferably by force.
If that should happen, I will aim to misbehave.
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