Posted on 06/06/2023 9:30:07 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I hadn’t seen this survey by the Cato Institute until today but it’s really striking. It seems that a shockingly high percentage of Gen Z would be okay with in-home government surveillance. If that sounds like something out of George Orwell’s 1984, that’s exactly how CATO saw it.
In the book 1984, citizens of the fictional nation Oceania are under constant government surveillance, including in their own homes. Devices called telescreens display propaganda and record peoples’ actions, allowing the government to monitor people even in what should be the most private place they know—their homes. This type of behavior is meant to be an extreme example of what can happen when a government gains too much power, and opposition to such surveillance has been assumed to be overwhelming and obvious. But is it?
In a newly released Cato Institute 2023 Central Bank Digital Currency National Survey of 2,000 Americans, we asked respondents whether they “favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.” Not surprisingly, few Americans—only 14 percent—support this idea. Three‐fourths (75 percent) would oppose government surveillance cameras in homes, including 68 percent who “strongly oppose,” while 10% don’t have an opinion either way.
However, Americans under the age of 30 stand out when it comes to 1984‐style in‐home government surveillance cameras. 3 in 10 (29 percent) Americans under 30 favor “the government installing surveillance cameras in every household” in order to “reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.”
Here’s a Cato produced chart showing the results.
Given that many American high school students read Orwell’s 1984 for English classes, Gen Z should be the group who read it most recently. Did they somehow miss the message of the novel?
One of the people who responded to these results on Twitter highlighted another poll taken back in 2020. This one was a poll of favorable views of Marxism taken in 2020.
The number of young Americans who have a favorable view of Marxism has increased five-fold in just one year. According to the new survey, nearly one-third of the members of Gen Z – Americans between the ages of 16 and 23 – deem “Marxism” worthy of support. The term’s favorability has skyrocketed to 30% among Gen Z respondents, up from 6% in 2019.
Gen Z’s approval of socialism also crept up nine points since last year (49% favorable in 2020, compared to 40% in 2019). The results come from the newest edition of the “Report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism, Communism, and Collectivism” – which is commissioned annually by the Victims of Communism Memorial (VOC) and conducted by YouGov.
So maybe the 1/3 of Gen Z that are fans of Marxism don’t really see the problem with in-home government surveillance. As some on the left like to say, government is just the name for things we do together.
It’s definitely worrisome that so much of Gen Z is clueless when it comes to some pretty basic ideas built into the foundation of America. Then again it’s a safe bet most of these people hate America and are squarely in the burn it to the ground camp.
In any case, I suspect there would be a strong overlap between respondents to this Cato poll who support home surveillance and the DSA/Working Families Party twenty-somethings who elect candidates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the rest of the squad. Maybe I give her too much credit but I suspect AOC herself would at least be aware that home surveillance is the kind of thing that gives leftists a bad name even if she privately didn’t see a problem with it.
Maybe that’s the most surprising part of this poll. It’s not that they believe something so egregiously awful, after all DSA policy positions are a litany of awful things. The really shocking part is that they were dumb enough to tell a pollster they supported this.
I am not surprised.
Have they not seen the TV show “Big Brother”?
I suppose that Generation Z is doomed. They will be voluntarily enslaved by the Millennials and what remains of Generation X. The Boomers are on the way out and don't really count except to be blamed for everything that goes wrong.
The people who might fix things (if they can be fixed) are 8-10 years old right now. Best to take good care of them.
No surprise.
Here’s how you explain it.
Trump will have eyes inside your home.
Like that idea?
LOL
I guess I can understand why they think that way.
With Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, TikTok etc, they aim cameras at themselves for hours everyday and post it where all can see. Letting the government do it to them is not a big step
Ping
The idea of Orwellian in-home surveillance? It is already a reality in a lot of people’s homes. Between the Alexa thingy they have installed in their homes listening in 24x7 and their cellphones which both listen in and track their movements, a lot of people are already fully comfortable being under Big Brother’s control. And when you ask them why, they say they “have nothing to hide”.
No Big Deal!
Our communist masters know that the pathetically servile and indolent Aamerican serfs will just continue to roll over and spread their collective cheeks...
Why not? They’re spreading their personal lives all over social media anyway.
That's the intent with propaganda.
Alas, not all youths are the same.
I couldn't find this poll's detailed breakdown, but in a recent poll, the Biden disapproval rating of 58% was in part driven by a whopping 94% disapproval rating from the Republican youths. In fact, if you look at the results by political affiliation the Republican youths are getting it right.
Every generation starts out idealistic and stupid. Then they grow up. The Boomers were drugged out hippies, GenX were depressed grungers, and so on...yet they elected Trump.
The same is happening to Millenials as they age. Sure, there is a segment that is eating Tide pods and getting on tv. But that's not all of them. Indeed, at my church on Sunday there are PLENTY of young families, and I assure you they aren't in favor of surveillance.
But we geezers would rather blame youths for being youths, as we forget our youthful stupidity, say "but it's DIFFERENT today" as we listen to The Last Waltz on our Walkman.
Further, if you let the MSM think for you, as they interview GenZers who live in NYC and LA or D.C. (i.e. Where the MSM live) of COURSE you'll get a biased sample of pod-eating snowflakes. It's by design...they WANT you to have no hope.
The MSM and TikTok want to think for you. It's a depressing situation if we do so, and that's by design. But we needn't just hope for tomorrow to be better; get out from behind our keyboards, and we will find that across Scouts, coworkers, and friends, most youths are pretty sharp.
There’s nothing surprising about this. This type of attitude is prevalent among stunted people who have never been told to grow up.
.
“” The Boomers were drugged out hippies””
I think you would be shocked to learn more truthful facts about the boomers.
My grandsons in college and highschool say this is BS. They dont know anyone who would be for this.
My truthful facts about Boomers are the same as the current youths.
Woodstock Nation got the attention of the media.
Many from that generation were against drugs, free love, and ban the bomb. They simply didn’t get airtime because they didn’t help Cronkite.
It’s the same with GenZ and Millenials. The normal ones aren’t on TV or TikTok.
The 2023 young idiots get airtime, but today’s elders who should know better, fall for the same circa-1968 trick.
I haven’t looked into all the generations but you are right about how surprising the actual data is versus the media misinformation, and how enduring the media branding is.
They prefer security over freedom.
I suspect if the same same survey were taken in a country run by a dictator it would reveal most prefer security over freedom. It’s all they have ever known.
Similarly, I try not to make the same broad stroke generalizations about today's younger generations. There are certainly many young people today who are entreprenurial go-getters and such. Not all are living in Momma's basement playing video games and being anti-social.
One striking difference between my generation (Baby Boomer) and today's generations however is how we were brought up and how much freedom the Baby Boomers had.
As one who came of age in the 1970s, I remember many summer days as a kid out on my bicycle. From morning to night, we'd pedal around town on our own, making our own fun (and our own mischief). Untethered from cell phones, helicopter parenting, and virtually no surveillance cameras around, we had true freedom to do pretty much whatever we wanted as kids. We had true freedom back then that younger people today cannot conceive of.
That is my concern with the younger generations. That they have grown up in a society where they were micromanaged as kids and always under some sort of supervision or surveillance. I know many parents who have webcams in their house so they can see what their kids are doing from work. The kids seem to think nothing of it. That does concern me.
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