Being Warned

THE PRESIDENTIAL SMART PHONE ALERT system was test run, and by all accounts acquitted itself quite famously, without a hitch, a glitch, or even so much as a trumped up twitter tweet. A further benefit is that the actual test text message was nothing more than a bland, generic, perfunctory computer generated statement of pure fact, something to the effect that no, this is not an actual emergency of any sort, but merely a test of a newly devised emergency alert system, opting out of reception of this here message is not an option, but no catastrophes are expected. That it was not composed by Donald J. Trump was evident in the fact that it was articulately written, did not include expressions like "totally terrific", or "we'll have to wait and see" and contained no gratuitous threats against anyone. And yet, the very appearance on one's smart phone of this ostensibly innocuous blather precipitates a vague sense of alarm. In particular, the part about one not being able to avoid getting the alert. There is, so it s, no opting our, no escape. Inclusion in the system is mandatory. This in itself is sufficient reason for me personally to consider the fact that I do not have a smart phone, primarily and previously for reasons of expense, risk of loss or destruction in coffee of expensive equipment, and a discernible yearning to be left alone. now I have a good new reason to avoid paying several hundred dollars upfront and a hundred dollars a month for the privilege of staring incessantly at a small screen while walking head first into trees, the new alert system itself. if I had a choice about whether to receive text message warnings of doom, I might consider putting myself on the list of alertees. but, with no such choice, if I had a smart phone, at this point, I would drive over it, and would not miss. Predictably, law suits are starting to pop up all across freedom's land, claiming the right to be left unharassed by cellular phonetic intrusions. I believe folks like the American Civil Liberties Union are chiming in, even as we text. Hardly surprising, considering the traditional liberal American love of liberty, and at least a few of these cases are destined to make their way up the judicial food chain, all the way to, heaven forbid, Kavanaugh and company, the infamous gang of nine reactionaries who are quite likely, in their current incarnation, to uphold the government's right to intrude into the small box beneath your pillow at their whimsical discretion. These right wing purveyors of alleged justice tout themselves as defenders of personal liberty against the encroaching high tide of intrusive big government, but don't believe it for a single stroke of the gavel.. The righteous conservative defense of personal liberty is merely a sham defense of the desire of all corporate enterprise to withhold any vestige of reasonable prosperity from employees, and a revulsion at the very thought that government might be used to do anything to help the poor, which in conservative circles is called "an attack on liberty". But it may eventuate that we the people are guaranteed at long last the right to enjoy life without having text tweets jammed down our gullets. The best advice, nonetheless, is to immediately trash your smart phone, and go E free. You'll save a great amount of money, and freedom to boot.