I’ve noticed the same thing…

…as Fleming. When I was a kid, the State used language that assumed the citizen was a human being worthy of respect. “Buckle up for safety.” “Keep America Beautiful”.

Now the State uses a bullying, contemptuous tone appropriate for a bureaucrat who assumes “the Masses” are so much concrete to be shoveled around, so many cattle to be prodded, so many sheep to be startled in this or that direction by technicians whose job is to do crowd control. “Click it or Ticket,” “Drive Hammered, Get Nailed,” “Slow Down or Pay Up,” and “Buckle Up, IT’S THE LAW” It is the grammar of a state that no longer believes in a free people, but in a crowd of human animals, unworthy of respect, who need to kicked because they are too stupid to be appealed to as rational beings.