When the documents purloined by Snowden the Rat surfaced, Dear Reader, you thought that you had seen the worst of spying by our masters. Think again. A whole new level of surveillance is about to commence, managed by the Thought Police.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have just given a grant of YOUR money to the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) to embark on a project to monitor your Twitter account for evidence of depressive mental illness. [Some might say that the very fact that you use Twitter is evidence of mental illness (i.e., hypertrophy of the ego), but I would not be so uncharacteristically uncharitable (heh heh). At worst, The Happy Pessimist might speculate that the use of Twitter indicates that you are a twit (for further analysis of twitdom, see Monty Python). But enough of these ad hominem animadversions. Let us move on to the meat of the matter.]

This is only the camel’s nose under the tent. If experience with gummint programs is any guide, this little study will metastasize into a comprehensive cataloging of all undesirable mental states.

But this is wonderful!

The Feds will undoubtedly marry this data with the Outlook address book they have already stolen from you and maintain in the bowels of the Ministry of Truth in the huge new computer complex in Utah. This will enable them to compile a complete social network connecting each group of mental defectives with similar conditions. Given the governmental penchant for acronyms, these will be denominated NON’s (Networks Of Nuts).

What will our masters do with NON people?

They will retool the superabundance of SWAT teams as Mental Health Squads, each headed by a shrink. They will zip around your town in giant urban assault vehicles which will be repainted white and adorned with a caduceus (you know, that little doctor symbol with snakes curled around a pole), breaking down the door of each and every NON person, and administer the appropriate therapy.

Are you depressed? They will shove Prozac down your throat!

Are you manic? They will shove Thorazine down your throat!

Are you suicidal? They will lace you into a strait jacket and cart you off to the nearest loony bin!

Are you a Republican? They will shoot you!

Within only a few weeks, the country will be cleansed of NON people, leaving a population of the certifiably sane. Of course, this means that we will have eliminated from the body politic all painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, novelists, politicians..

Politicians?

Maybe we are safe after all.