By Chris Basten

  Why I continue to read the news is beyond me. Everyday I torture myself with the latest on reports of child abuse, war-torn countries that have no economies, corrupt governments and the increasing support for them, and the precious loss of individual rights. Rarely do I ever feel better about myself or the world I live in after I read the news. I continually ask myself why I do this if it results in such misery and depression.

The only answer that I have come up with is that I wish to see better for mankind. If I do not continue to educate myself about what is happening in the world, I am helpless to do much about it. This does not do much to comfort me but applying to reason usually doesn't result in happiness. The truth usually hurts. In my book, ignorance is not bliss; it is the road on which the world travels toward breakdown, dependence on force, and what we continue to label as "progression."

Studying the news and siphoning out the trendy from the truthful is no idle task. What I have found has paid dividends, however. Individual responsibility aside, I have gleaned that there are two abundantly powerful forces that continue to destroy humanity and they often have their hands down each other's pants: government and religious fundamentalism.

Now granted, not all fundamentalists are despicable nor are all politicians the reincarnation of Hitler. Nevertheless, government and fundamentalist movements appear to me as the most crude and contemptible forces on earth because they affect so many lives with their coercive and fear-laden tactics. Allowing them free reign on our personal lives or ignoring them altogether does not improve our individual lots in life. They have both proven throughout human history that they will not go away without taking everyone with them.

My daily perusal of the news finds government and religious force in full swing to maddening and frightening degrees. Even those who are anti-government and anti-religion have their own twinge of fundamentalism to them. This is why I cringe when I find myself viewing the world in black-and-white to counter those who think in black-and-white. Fundamentalism begets fundamentalism and once this happens, reliance on force begets force. None of us are immune from becoming trapped in these formidable cycles, by the way.

From birth-control to drug use, from gun ownership to smoking in public, from freedom of speech to euthanasia, governments and extremist religions work hand-in-hand to control our personal lives so that we no longer have the freedom to choose what we want for ourselves. We either obey or face hefty fines and possible imprisonment or, at the very least, we are demonized and castigated for taking ownership of our lives and choosing what we want for them.
Consenting adults who do not hurt each other or another's property are punished or pushed through the court systems to behave as the majority wishes them to. They cannot socialize and smoke marijuana in the privacy of their own home or on their own front lawn without fear of the police state barging in and ruining their lives. They cannot engage in certain sexual activities on their own private property behind their own walls because there are bossy, fundamentalist lobbyists who are disgusted with acts that do nothing to hurt them or anyone else; they merely don't like them because the Bible, the Koran, the latest cult, or some totalitarian says so.

I read continuously in Iraq about how soldiers shoot innocent families because they didn't understand English instructions to stop at certain "check points" that they have set up to control and monitor everyone else. They discourage citizens from protecting themselves and force them to rely solely on American "security" instead. More recently, troops forced a certain Iraqi press to discontinue operations because they were too fundamentalist in their publications about resisting American forces. Here we see a vintage example of rigid fundamentalism prompting fundamentalism through the use of bullying and guns.

The Pope recently condemned Australia as a whole for choosing to participate in sporting events more so than going to church on Sundays. He didn't hurt anyone or force guns on those who kick soccer balls around but his message is one that tries to boss other people around for the choices that they make. According to the Pontiff, Catholics are supposed to get together in Catholic churches instead of unifying with their community for harmless sporting activities on a day that an institution claims is "holy." Sorry, but how one collective gathering fares over another is based upon individual choice, not what one feeble old man dictates.

Of more dire consequence is the movement afoot to force the labeling of condom packaging with information that condoms cannot protect against all STDs. While this may hold some merit, anyone who follows the news knows that this does not tell the whole story. Certain fundamentalists cannot stand the fact that so many human beings enjoy sex recreationally outside the bounds of marriage and therefore lobby to change laws about sexual practices. Whether condoms actually are preventative against disease is becoming anyone's guess because no one can decipher if information is based on scientific fact or mere evangelical bullying to scare people into becoming more abstinent. The results of such propaganda has been genocidal in Africa as this continent often relies more on what the church or a religious elder tells them about condoms instead of what health professionals do. If they go on the errant assumption that condoms don't really do much, they won't bother with them and will still have sex anyway.

Lives depend upon factual information and all too often, you can't depend on the government or fundamentalist regimes to provide it because they are too busy harassing people with laws, threats, sanctions, and an endless cache of weapons to abide by religious or political "morals." You would think that most would start wising up to these skewed agendas but more often than not, people get blinded by the scare-tactics and buckle under such overwhelming force. We all fall prey to it at times and some are more vulnerable than others.

So what can be done about it? The answer is crudely simple and seemingly insignificant because it has been bellowed from the rooftops for ages and is so slow in its effectiveness. This does not change the reliance of its truthfulness, however. The answer is to never stop educating yourself or using your mind to create solutions. Force never creates anything but more force and kills much more life than it saves. Using your mind and applying yourself to the rigors of reasoned thinking never harmed anyone. In fact, it is the life support that humanity clings to when the powers that be are preoccupied with lobbying, creating more laws, robbing more and more of our hard-earned money, using God to further dangerous agendas, and sticking guns in our faces.