01.02.10
The End of Freedoms
I was watching Dune the other night and something occurred to me. Having read the series throughout my teen and young adult years, way before the TV shows and TV movies were made, I had to envision what all of these futuristic spaceships and devices and creatures and weapons looked like. All I had to go by was what was written… and I can imaging tens of thousands of other teens and young adults and older adults reading the exact same words I was and NOT coming up with the visual representations that I did. And while watching the made for TV movie, it occurred to me that what I had set in my mind 40 years ago was still there – and in many cases, I think my interpretation of the book was more accurate than the movie’s. Today teens do not have to read and visualize – it is served to them on hundreds of TV channels and thousands of video games. They do not need to sit back and think it out – it is there…. IT IS THERE, but it is how somebody else interprets it. So these people have surrendered their ability to think freely and taken on the idea of if it is in print, if a movie has been made about it… it must be correct. Take for instance Al Gore’s INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Accepted at face value, yet it is now shown as really INCONVENIENT LIES to the extent that courts in England require that all the misinformation presented be stated as WRONG. Teens today believe that driving a SUV will destroy the planet.. Al Gore says it will – yet how many of them take a moment to discover that cows do more damage to the atmosphere than cars? Well, PETA wants us to stop eating meat. My concern is that when a person willingly surrenders his or her right to think it out – they find it easier to surrender their other rights…. We are on the threshold of having a Health Care Bill passed that will REQUIRE all US citizens to have healthcare — the first time there has EVER been a surcharge to have US CITIZEN stamped on your passport! Our rights are being taken away - but what the heck – the newest video game will be out by mid-month.
