(Read prior post first)
Quite a large stab at our freedom happened quite recently, quite underhandedly, and very much covertly. The last bastion of decency had been compromised, and they took the initiative to control what a certain group was able to comprehend on television. To clarify things, the Department of Education formed a committee of five individuals to, quite basically, monitor television shows and deem which ones were not appropriate for closed captioning. The regime listed that only educational, news, and informative programming were worthy of the special needs of the deaf.
So, with the flick of a wrist, 28 million people were rendered disabled twice over. And they weren't even asked. I can imagine that they were enjoying a rerun of some outdated television show when the words just stopped coming onto the screen. Chaos took over, surely.
But the kicker is the fact that the five person committee didn't even know they were even on a committee. They didn't know each other, and they never realized that they were recruited into the government for animal testing. They stood dumbfounded, with mouths agape, wondering exactly what it was they had just done.
Now, the process of vegetating in front of cathode-ray tubes shouldn't be exalted in the slightest, but there is a point when protectiveness simply becomes a bad disguise for information control, regardless of format. Television is simply the beginning.
The reasoning for the censorship, it seems, is that the Bush Administration did not want ideas that could marginally brush on any Taliban philosophy. They mean to say that Courage the Cowardly Dog was actually a Jihad avatar in disguise. Now, all the deaf are immune to his nonsensical anti-american gibberish.
Then, morally pure children begun to point at their screens and cried out:
"Aah. Yes. Him barking and pointing at the monster really denotes that he is but a small faction of peace-loving Muslims that want freedom from the oppressive nature of Christian Imperial America. See how the slime oozes from it? That means that democracy is but a blanket tossed on to blind the world. I see it all now."
And thus, they were corrupted.
Along the line, an executive said something akin to:
"Well, if we're going to get rid of Taliban Television Warlords, we may as well get rid of witchcraft."
So reruns of Bewitched were thrown out as well.
"And sports. So very... very... archaic."
FOX Sports flew out the window, and into the no-no zone.
"And, and, and..."
The ball was rolling, and there was no stopping it.
The National Association of the Deaf are trying now to repeal the action, so that they can get back with their lives. They obviously know about the First Amendment; why doesn't the government?
Also, somewhere along the line a couple of years back, the Department of Naturalization and Immigration somehow slipped in under the control of Homeland Security. Which means that anyone that wasn't white did not move straight to "Go", and did not collect their two hundred dollars.
But what does this all mean? All these seemingly silly things do have an absolutely profound effect on us all. It shaves away some of our freedom, bit by bit. Take away some words here, some information there. Misplace ideas, distract attention, slide the hand under the table. While we're all thinking about a chunk of metal possibly landing on one of those red planets, or the quality of our celebrities, or the possibly offensive actions of a group, countries disappear, ideas disappear, voices disappear.
... The finishing touch, later.
(*edit* No, nevermind. Don't feel like adding the ending I had planned. Sorreh.)
