Writes Patrick Wright:

With all of the state surveillance operations now being officially recognized in mainstream news feeds, and many more people beginning to realize such subjects are not merely the paranoid fantasies of the tinfoil hat crowd, I just happened to be browsing Netflix in search of one of my favourite Twilight Zone episodes.

It is entitled, “The Obsolete Man” and stars Burgess Meredith. It depicts a totalitarian future (airing in 1960 as it did) where the state had openly implemented systematic extermination of undesirable people, including people it considered “obsolete”. The protagonist is a librarian in a world the state had long since rid of books and libraries. This was his capital crime.

Watch it. From start to finish, including Serling’s epilogue, it is a gem.

“The Obsolete Man”, Episode 29, Season 2

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.