Big Brother is watching you! This is one of the frightening propaganda posters portrayed in George Orwell's novel 1984, which offers a terrifying prophetic vision of a totalitarian state. A totalitarian government is one that subjugates its citizens and holds complete authority over society and seeks to control all aspects of its citizens' public and private lives. It is these types of controlling governments that use different deceptive strategies to gain control of a nation such as media censorship, propaganda everywhere, ruling using fear and secret police forces (Thought Police). It is this tyrannical government that Orwell feared would come true in the near future. Although our society today has not yet degenerated into such a tyrannical state, there are some aspects of our society that are taking us in that direction. “Most governments usually are and all governments are sometimes inappropriate” (Civil Disobedience 1) and even the American government sometimes subjugates its citizens and deprives their liberties and rights. Our country is built on the principles of freedom and liberty, but sometimes acts contrary to these beliefs when it seeks to control the lives of its citizens. Our governments, similar to the one in 1984, control their citizens by depriving them of privacy, repressing their natural impulses, and engaging in perpetual war. Imagine a world where every single move you make is monitored and observed by surveillance everywhere from cameras on street poles, to the cell phone in your pocket. There is no such thing as privacy, it is this world that is quickly becoming a reality as major technological advances make it easier and more convenient for governments to spy on their citizens. This lack of privacy is... middle of the paper... it can never be defeated, so there will always be perpetual war. It is this perpetual war that makes citizens willing to sacrifice some rights for national security. In 1984 citizens loved Big Brother because it created an illusion of safety and security, just as they believed that Bush protected them, with greater security. Bush created the Patriot Act, using the word Patriot to make it seem necessary and useful. Therefore War is Peace and keeps citizens controlled and subjugated by the government, as they believed they were protected. So we see how the government, as in 1984, has subjugated its citizens in modern society by depriving them of privacy, repressing their natural impulses and finding themselves in a state of perpetual war. We should be careful and stop the devolution of our society towards a tyrannical state like the one described in 1984.