In his classic, 1984, George Orwell selected certain features of his society as a basic skeleton, then fleshed political fiction over the bones. Many parallels between 1984 and the modern world have long been recognized. In Orwell's Warning: The Greatest Amerikan Paradox, Erik Blaire compares these features to the paradoxes of American politics, violence, and religion. Finding they are inseparable, he proposes that American freedom must therefore also be paradoxical. Arm...

"In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia." —George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946) Imagine, if you would, an average American. We’ll call him “Ed.” Ed is in his mid-thirties, works in an office, and is currently standing at the paper shredder. He’s holding a stack of paper in one arm while feeding the paper shred...