by Chris Basten

  Humans are a distractible bunch. The media is especially attention-deficit. The current onslaught of assembly-line news that rehashes the same insignificant topics day after day never ceases to evoke a readership. Meanwhile, Freedom lies in his deathbed hacking up a lung and vomiting into a cistern. The government does a haphazard imitation of a nurse carefully tending to its patient and onlookers marvel at her tireless devotion. What no one seems to realize is that underneath the nurse’s sweet disposition is a demented individual who is slowly poisoning her patient to death. Such is the Government with Freedom.

Not that anyone cares. We’re too distracted with turning our most private liberties into State-approved entitlements. Our country is engrossed in the government deciding for us what marriage is and what it is not. This is a despicable encroachment on the separation of Individual and State. The government should not even heed to the distinctions within private relationships. It is none of their business. But because the "pro-family" advocates are afraid of their own shadows, they tug on Mommy Government’s skirt and cry about how the gays and polygamists are threatening their way of life. As a result, we all have to suffer and listen to politicians talk about marriage. Have we sunk so low that we need the State violating such private areas of our lives? Apparently so as marriage is the most pressing issue that people are willing to stake their votes on right now.

The politicians love it. When we beg them to take care of what we should be able to define and monitor for ourselves, they make promises and everyone’s ears salivate for more and more of them. Issues such as marriage should be exempt from political discourse. Those who insisted that matrimony requires a state-approved license in order to make a life-long commitment to another human being should have been ignored when such a proposal was first made. But the government loves such suggestions and cannot resist them because they distract the masses from looking at severe State-sponsored intrusions like socialized medicine, social security, and military occupation all over the globe.

The divorce rate has skyrocketed to 65% since government-licensure of marriages began. The most rabid of Christians and other marriage-protection proponents claim that government force will keep our family bonds secure with an amendment. Though we already have laws on the books about marriage, the special interests feel that more government force is the answer. If these particular Christians truly depended on God in the fashion they so often brag about, the State would not be implored to with such frequency. They may want to learn from the Amish and mind their own business once in awhile.

The scathing fundamentalists baffle me incessantly. They have covered our news columns with commentaries about Mel Gibson’s film, "The Passion of the Christ", to no end. This is not what bothers me, however; their opinions are welcomed in a free market of ideas. It is their interpretation of the cinematic content that riles me so. They are free to have their beliefs about Jesus as God-incarnate. I am not a representative of their faith and do not care to go into why I think religion is bunk.

What concerns me is that so many Christians, and even non-Christians, cannot see that the story of Jesus is really about aggression and coercion by the State (which was the Roman Empire at that time). The more secular left barks to the religious right and vice versa about the virtues or violence of the Christ saga. They even heap in accusations of anti-Semitism to get our highly religious populace frothy at the mouth as well. It distracts us easily from the morbid state that our freedom is in.

A film about Jesus is not the problem and I’m tired of reading about political writers bickering back and forth as though it was a pressing political issue. All humans, regardless of political affiliation, would do well to learn that “The Passion” is about brutality and death when empires are given the permission to crucify dissenters that they do not approve of. Rome got away with it for eons. Perhaps the tale of Jesus is really about learning how evil force can be. Religious or not, we can all glean something from such a message.

The mainstream media plays right into the government’s hands by always fighting about such private issues as marriage and religion. That is not to say that they should not write about such topics. The point is that they bleed their political slants into these personal areas of life and suggest that the State should have an opinion and should probably even get involved to prove who is right. This does great damage to the American psyche. We forget about our liberty and dust such things as a $7 trillion dollar debt and military incursions under the rug because we are so preoccupied with begging the government to take sides over our little pet projects like marriage amendments and the Pledge of Allegiance. Meanwhile, our Government Nurse smiles in her ominous way while her sickly patient, Freedom, gags on his own mucus in the corner of the room.

Let us return to our feeble patient named Freedom. Faced with reality, we realize that Freedom is struggling to survive in a frail, vulnerable condition and just isn’t sexy. Instead of focusing on such misery, we ignore his existence and rely on what Nurse Government is telling us while she glazes tiny traces of poison into Freedom’s food and drink (right under our noses, no less). Nurse Government seems so caring, so quick to come to Freedom’s aid. She just seems so helpful, so caring, and may even save Freedom from the clutches of death. Do not be fooled for she carries a large sickle-blade under her cloak. She cares nothing for Freedom and cannot wait until he passes on. If she can do Freedom in without anyone being the wiser, she will captivate us all into the same condition.