A lot of fuss is being made about the introduction of photo radar on Ontario highways to catch speeders, slow down traffic flow and reduce accidents.
Committed speeders are losing their minds because somebody has thought up an ingenious way to catch them. They wonder how the law can allow the use of a device to stop them from breaking the law. There must be a clause in some charter somewhere preventing this from happening.
Personally, I’m not sure what everybody’s getting so frazzled about, as I predict the appearance of photo radar “busters” on store shelves within months. Those of us who just can’t wait for the return of our right to run our cars up against bridge abutments at 150 kilometres an hour will soon be back in business.
After being an unrelenting critic of the New Democrat’s Bob Rae for the past four years, I’ve got to admit now that this may be the premier’s finest hour. His socialist goal of getting everyone to march along in time, looking the same, thinking the same and talking the same, is one step closer to reality. All thanks to a little technological device.
Of course, you know, this is just a beginning. There are no limits to the possibilities. Already, they’re talking about using photo radar to control intersections and the drivers who run red lights and such.
But more important uses await. To satisfy their cravings, dieters will someday have to sneak past cameras installed in fridges to catch middle-of-the-night snackers. Smoke detectors equipped with mini-cams will track down unrepentant smokers who light up in forbidden places. Newspaper boxes will be equipped with devices which will catch people inclined to grab a handful of papers for their 50 cents. And tiny cameras worn as jewellery by exceedingly attractive people will instantly catch strangers whose eyes remain fixed on them past the allowable time limit. A week after all these offences, the guilty ones will receive their tickets in the mail.
But the chief and best uses of all these modern marvels are also the most exciting. By implanting video and audio devices in the bodies of humans a few days after they’re born, governments will have a better chance of controlling all thought, speech and by extension, behaviour. As a result, expressions of profanity will be followed by mild hearing loss, the use of politically incorrect language will bring on a temporary loss of speech and looking at things which have been designated as forbidden by the Ministry of Improper Sights will result in varying periods of blindness.
All these things, of course, are only stops on the way to the perfect world unfolding where humans will be programmed like computers and faulty components, such as those obviously operating in ne’er-do-wells and bandits, will be replaced or repaired.
At first, all this surveillance will be hard on old cranks like myself who don’t even have the will to stop at the third piece of cake let alone the ability to function as the fully conforming citizen the socialists want to design. But my guess is, future devices not yet invented will eventually make even curmudgeons like myself see the error of our ways.
(Update 2020: I am a little embarrassed by the above column which was published 26 years ago. I don’t mind the way it is written but I am much more aligned to “socialists” than I used to be. Ironic that when I was more than a quarter century younger than I am now, I was less receptive to change than I am today.)
©1994 Jim Hagarty
