Isolation

I used to wonder why churches and villages and other clans would use excommunication as a form of punishment. I always thought that excommunication would be a relief, especially from certain societies that had rules and laws which were onerous and burdensome. To me what could be better than being removed from such a society? All of a sudden the outcast is in total control of the rules and regulations that govern his/her life.

As I've grown, I realize that, much like a wolf-pack, humans need rules. Humans need stratification, laws and the security that those laws provide. Not the enforcement of those laws by police, but the security of knowing boundaries. The security of knowing what is expected and what is not expected. The blanket of warmth that snugs us into the fabric of society.

I don't always agree with it, but it seems that humans beg to be led. They beg to be spoonfed what to think and how to think it. Humans want to be told what to believe. They want to know how they should feel. They turn to the tabloids, they turn to the cable news, they turn to mass media. It's quite sad that the few individual thinkers that exist are considered "radicals" or "revolutionaries." Perhaps it is because those persons can see through the veil of popular opinion and glimpse the truth.

I've heard it said that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water it will jump right out and hardly be burned at all. Yet if that very same frog can be placed into a pot of warm water on the stove, it will swim around and die as the water temperature becomes hotter and hotter. This metaphor is being used as a reality by large companies and governments to slowly change the way that we view our world. To introduce a new style of product, often a is interjected before the unveiling of the final product. Ford Motor Company did this in the 1980's by changing from the big boxy styled LTD's and Fairmonts and Thunderbirds to the newer more aerodynamic look of the Tempo, Taurus and new Thunderbirds. They did it again in the 1990's with the F-150....in order to unveil the 2004 F-150 with it's radical new styling.

We sit and watch our government change it's policies and add laws with non-sensical riders attached. We are so concerned about ism that we watch as our rights are systematically eroded and erased. We don't even bat an eye. Our ability to move from state to state is soon going to become difficult. Imagine roadblocks on interstates hampering our interstate commerce. It will happen. Shades of the KGB you say? I agree. Isolating from state to state. Soon after it will be counties, then cities. When all else fails and unemployment is high-create more government, that's what we're coming to.

Our Congressmen reap benefits after only 6 years that many of the commonweal work a lifetime to achieve, yet fall well short. These "leaders" don't pay into social security and they hardly pay taxes. Our tax system isolates the middle income wage earners and rewards those at the topmost and the bottommost of the system. Little by little the most elite are assuming control of our daily lives. They are pushing us further and further from the decision making processes that direct our daily activities, and like that frog we swim around comfortably warm but totally unsuspecting.

I'd say that rather than being excommunicated all at once, we're watching it happen inch by inch, it's just that we're too busy being spoonfed media garbage that we don't see it happen. That's the saddest part of our isolation, isn't it?