How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from 12 Monkeys.
Quote #1
WARDEN: Volunteer duty!
COLE: I didn't volunteer.
WARDEN: You causing trouble again?
COLE: No, no trouble.
Did that virus kill all the dictionaries, too? Because that's not what "volunteer" means. Actually, the warden is using something called newspeak. Newspeak is when people—usually politicians and those in power—use soft-sounding euphemisms to hide what they really mean. For example: saying, "volunteer" when you really mean "forced labor."
Cole is often restrained by those in power, but this one of the subtler ways used to restrain him.
Quote #2
DETECTIVE: Negative for drugs. But he took on five cops like he was dusted to the eyeballs. No drugs. You believe that?
RAILLY: He's in restraints.
DETECTIVE: Yeah. Weren't you listenin'? I've got two police officers in the hospital! Yeah, he's in restraints. And the medic gave him enough stellazine to kill a horse. Look at him. Rarin' to go.
RAILLY: That would explain the bruises, I guess. The struggle.
And this is one of the not-so-subtle ways Cole is restrained by social powers. Naked and alone, he is beaten and put in a jail cell by law enforcement. As Dr. Railly points out, he is literally "in restraints."
Cole's one defense, at this point, is his ability to punch real good, but that's only effective against a single person, not the system as a whole.
Side note: why are so many time-travelers sent back naked or darn near close enough? They just have to know that's going to end badly for them, regardless of what era they are sent to.
Quote #3
GOINES: A telephone call? That's communication with the outside world. Doctor's discretion. Nah, nah. If all of these nuts could just make phone calls, it could spread insanity, oozing through telephone cables, oozing to the ears of all these poor, sane people, infecting them. Wackos everywhere. A plague of madness.
The restraints put on Cole just keep on coming. After being restrained physically, now he's being restrained mentally by having his freedoms limited. He no longer has freedom of movement, freedom of schedule, or the freedom to make any choices, really.
He doesn't even have that most basic of modern liberties: the freedom to communicate.