The Mueller report cites ten instances where "obstruction of justice" might be construed from the actions or words of the president, such as wanting to fire the special counsel or expressing frustration with the wide-ranging scope of the investigation.

When someone insists on bridging vast chasms of logic with ephemeral constructs of fantasy, we rightfully reject his conclusions, usually with words like "unsupportable" or, my personal favorite, "bat-s‑‑‑‑ crazy."

The media are breathlessly speculating that these instances taken together are "a roadmap for impeachment," as they reveal the president's desire to "obstruct" the Mueller investigation.

What they fail to mention is that the president did not fire the special counsel, nor did he limit the scope of Mueller's investigation, nor claim executive privilege to prevent scrutiny of documents and memos, nor forestall the interviewing of pretty much everyone who ever spoke to him since he traversed his mother's birth canal so many years ago.

That fact obliterates any claim of "obstruction," as "obstruction of justice" is an act, not the contemplation of an act.

Within the squirming worm clots Democrats and the media use for brains, they have placed thought on an equal footing with action, declaring the thought alone as proof enough of criminality.

This dystopian neologism has a name, given to us 70 years ago this June, in 1949, by the prescient George Orwell in his masterwork, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In that novel, it is called "thoughtcrime," and it is the criminal act of holding unspoken beliefs or doubts that oppose or question Ingsoc, the ruling party.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, thought police are tasked with uncovering and punishing thoughtcrime. They employ inescapable surveillance and continuous psychological monitoring to find (and eliminate!) those members of society who harbor thoughts that challenge party authority or depart from approved party ideology.

Can anyone convince me that is not an apt description of our present circumstance?

As entertaining as it is to see presumably sentient human beings abandon all connection to reality (a form of comedy the mainstream media have elevated to an art form with every newscast!), we would be wise to recall the lessons of Orwell's book and to take note of the distressingly accurate parallels between today's events and Orwell's near prophetic vision.

Above all, never forget that these present-day leftists seek the same hegemony over society the fictional party Ingsoc held over Oceania and have repeatedly shown themselves as quite willing to employ the exact same methods to achieve it. Indeed, to our eternal shame, they have succeeded more often than they have been turned away.

We may feel a measure of safety with the end of the Mueller probe, but we would be quite wrong to do so. As Orwell so accurately instructs, this is only the beginning, and Big Brother is watching.

Image: Mark Hillary via Flickr.