Yet high-tech statism still needs an overarching narrative. In the new school of panoptic fiction-such as John Twelve Hawks's recently completed Fourth Realm trilogy-the justification for round-the-clock surveillance is usually "security." But the "security state" is a tough sell: if you tell people the government is compiling data on them for national security purposes, the left instinctively recoils. But, if you explain that you're doing it to "lower emissions," starry-eyed coeds across the land will coo their approval. And the middle-class masochists of the developed world will whimper in orgasmic ecstasy as you tighten the screws, pausing only to demand that you do it to them harder and faster.[snip]

At their Monday night poker game in hell, I'll bet Stalin, Hitler and Mao are kicking themselves: " ‘It's about leaving a better planet to our children?' Why didn't I think of that?" This is Two-Ply Totalitarianism-no jackboots, no goose steps, just soft and gentle all the way. Nevertheless, occasionally the mask drops and the totalitarian underpinnings become explicit. Take Elizabeth May's latest promotional poster: "Your parents f*cked up the planet. It's time to do something about it. Live Green. Vote Green." As Saskatchewan blogger Kate McMillan pointed out, the tactic of "convincing youth to reject their parents in favour of The Party" is a time-honoured tradition.