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In a scenario worthy of George Orwell, a local television station recently presented a "filler," a human-interest story during its evening news broadcast. Exploiting the recent surge in "patriotic" fervor inundating the country, the program offered the viewing audience an oh-so-sweet tableau. Standing upon a school stage, closely arrayed for the television camera, a score or two of students crowded closely together in delightful harmony. Arching above the student group like a sheltering rainbow in letters three or four feet tall flowed the word, "FREEDOM."
Ah, yes, wonderful, wonderful freedom. Who could possibly condemn such a national icon of the American soul?
While the tape rolled, the practiced students sang their hymn to glorious freedom. Earnestly, they told us how much they valued freedom, how great that ideal is, and how we must preserve it at all costs.
To the television producers who created this spot and to the "educators" who sanctioned the use of their wards as fodder to fill a small bit of airtime, having grade school kids chanting the praises of freedom was an unremarkable event; a throwaway exercise in killing a bit of time.
As I watched this mini-spectacle, I experienced a number of reactions. Initially, I, too, thought that such a display was nothing out of the ordinary. Grade school students are often herded into such "cute" exhibitions. When I was a tyke attending a two-room country school, we took a field trip to the city AM radio station to sing Christmas carols with our off-key enthusiasm. Hard on the heels of that first business-as-usual response, however, I felt a burst of startled irony that elicited a bark of incredulous (but unamused) laughter. I sought to develop this feeling into a sense of outrage, but the most I could muster was a feeling of "and that's the way it is."
It might be comforting to suppose that these teachers and TV folk were sophisticated or cynical enough to be deliberately shoving this incongruous set-piece in our faces in a kind of electronic raspberry. Such overweening self-confidence in flaunting their topsy-turvy view of the world might presage a move to making their inversion of reality explicit. Then we could confront such nonsense in a head-on debate devoid of the evasions and lies under which the statists have masked their agenda for so long.
Alas. I sincerely doubt that the school and media people are actually intellectually self-aware or honest enough to recognize the Orwellian implications of the tidy script they followed in having their students extol the virtues of freedom.
In the spirit of modern "tolerance" and a cultural and moral relativism that declares, i.e., judges, that it is the height of arrogance and ignorance "to judge" anyone else regardless of how wrong, asinine, or stupid his beliefs, I will, therefore, cloak myself in the favorite feel-good blanket of present-day society, i.e., empathy, and attempt my best to walk-in-their-shoes and view the world through the lenses of their fun house glasses.
Lessee... Hold on while I adjust these... Whoa! This is wild. Like a trip on the yellow submarine... Okay. Here it comes. Yes. Yes. It's becoming oh-so-clear to me now. Here is what "freedom" must mean to these people who are so oblivious to their own lives:
I am a free man...
...because I am forced to send my children only to the school located in my district as determined by a bunch of folks sitting on a school board who are elected by people who may or may not have children of their own; because I have no say in determining what will or will not be taught my children, whether evolution or creationism, religion or atheism, music or sports; because I can be fined or imprisoned if my children do not attend classes when they are told to; because, if I choose to school my children at home, I must be monitored and granted permission by authorities selected by the school board; because, even if I do not have children, I have to pay property taxes that are fifty-percent as large as my mortgage payments to pay for the schools; because if I choose to pay to send my children to a private school, I still have to pay for their unused slots in the public schools; because the school district can unilaterally add surcharges to my state taxes and impose additional taxes to balance their budgets when they lose students.
I am free...
...because I must seek permission from the sheriff to purchase a firearm; because I must pay for the permit; because I am denied a permit to carry a weapon since I only want to protect my life and not a large payroll; because I can be thrown into jail for carrying a weapon openly, for carrying a knife with a blade longer than four-inches, for carrying brass knuckles, a stun gun, a switchblade, or anything else actually useful in defending myself; because I cannot have a gun in my car unless it is taken apart and unloaded, placed in a locked container or in my trunk, and completely unavailable in case I need to use it; because I cannot carry a gun with me when I go on vacation visiting strange locales and in bad neighborhoods or when I fly on a plane that a hijacker might try to seize; because, even if I am a pilot entrusted with the lives of hundreds of people and millions of dollars worth of equipment, I cannot have a gun in my cockpit; because I cannot have a handgun with me at work, even though at a local university, a disgruntled Chinese graduate student walked through the physics building shooting people with impunity; because in some towns, I cannot own any kind of firearm even in my own home.
I am free...
...because I cannot decide what to place within my own body; because I will be thrown in jail if I smoke marijuana, ingest cocaine, shoot heroin, swallow Ecstasy or LSD or any other drug-of-the-month; because in some places, I cannot drink any alcoholic beverages or buy them on Sunday or in a grocery store; because I pay extra taxes if I drink or smoke; because I must seek permission from a doctor given authority by the government to allow me to purchase the medicines I need to live; because I must live in miserable pain if I have a terminal disease and cannot obtain sufficient narcotics from my doctor or marijuana to help me keep down my meds or other drugs to end my life with dignity and painlessly.
I am free...
...because my property can be seized if someone I don't even know has illicit drugs there; because I cannot take out or deposit more than $10,000 at a time without it being reported to the government; because I can be thrown in jail if I take out or deposit less than $10,000 at a time if I am accused of doing so to hide where the money came from; because I must have an identification number -- and maybe my fingerprints -- to get a job, a credit card, a loan, a mortgage, a fishing license, a marriage license, a gun permit, and much more; because over half of my income is taken from me in taxes, licenses, and fees; because I cannot replace the roof on my home, remodel the bathroom, or paint it without paying for the privilege and obtaining permission; because I cannot practice most professions without permission from the State.
I am free...
...because, because, because, becauuuusssseee.....
AH! Ow! Ow!
Too much! I've got to take these damned glasses off. Yeow! My head is spinning. My brow is throbbing.
Whoa! How do those people stand viewing the world through such crude distortions? I truly cannot understand it.
What these folks are reporting as the essence of what it means to be free has no relationship that I can discern to the truth. These are fevered fantasies floating detached from anything even vaguely resembling facts.
Now. What is it that we call someone who has lost such near-total touch with reality? Oh, yeah.
Insane.
