I’ll Say This About the Communists; They Sure Can Put on One Heck of a Parade!

Ignore for a few moments the deaths of millions, the starvation of women and children and take a look at what Communism has going for it; those glorious parades!

I don’t know what firm handles the event planning for those things, but they will undoubtedly be coveted by all the major presidential candidates.

Organizing thousands of banner waving, goosestepping pinkos can’t be easy. I reckon it’s a good thing the parade coordinators have “pain of death” as a nice incentive for citizen attendance and cooperation. And you can be assured no candy is tossed from moving vehicles on the streets of Pyongyang.

The Erosion of Freedom

Growing up, my family made an annual pilgrimage to a small island on the North Carolina coast. There under the Southern summer sun I learned how to fish for, but rarely catch, flounder. My brother taught me by painful demonstration the fine art of delivering an expertly timed “wedgie.” And I ate more than my fair share of creek shrimp served up Calabash style.

I think of those week long summer excursions often.

Not too long ago, I returned to the area on business – just one island up from my summer playground. As I walked along the sandshell paved street I came to the end of the island and discovered a rather disheartening site; someone’s home slipping slowly into the sea.

There was no violence. No sudden disturbance. No hurricane. Just the steady, boring drumbeat of nature slowly taking its course. The once grand house now resembled little more than a dear old friend facing the unpleasant end at the hands of some undiscovered cancer. Had the disease been caught in time something could have been done, but now the conclusion was forgone and the time short. And while at the surface things seemed as peaceful as always, there was simultaneously burgeoning underneath an elusive force bent on nothing less than annihilation. Unrelenting in its cause and unwavering in its determination. Hope of recovery was surrendered quietly, unknowingly years prior.

I walked away more slowly than I had approached.

That house and the inherent hopes, memories and dreams on which it once so firmly stood would eventually collapse unceremoniously into itself.

And I pause and give wonder to what lies beneath the foundation of this our common house, of this our country? What sands are shifting underneath our feet unbeknownst to us?

Before you throw me in the black helicopter and chain me to Art Bell and Bill Cooper, allow me to add a personal disclaimer of such here; I am in no way saying that the yellow condemned tape is wrapping our once grand home nor am I even suggesting that it has been removed from its packaging, but perhaps it is on order.

The erosion of freedom isn’t a hasty process. It’s taken in the dark of night under the cover of some friendly government entitlement. It’s picked from our paychecks before we even have the chance to put them in the bank. And it’s deleted from the pages of history in the name of political sensitivity. The specific examples are unimportant for the sake of this argument (code for I’m running out of time and can’t list them currently).

All this analogy brings us to today’s question(s) with the hopes of you providing some answer; where is freedom slipping out from underneath us, and more importantly what can be done to sure up our once sound footing? Maybe tomorrow will bring answers.

Freedom is a blank screen with that always consistent flashing cursor waiting patiently for you to breathe direction and passion on to the empty canvas that it serves as some sort of strange diplomat.

Or you could just say that the summer lull between primaries and the general provides ample time for doing nothing. My wife told me to get a hobby, so I'll try this for at least a day or two.

I've always thought there was a certain arrogance associated with blogging. Truly who would care what my views are on any subject? And after I undoubtedly see the hits on this site skyrocket upwards towards the low teens, I am certain to feel the rush of influence raging through my cholestrol caked veins.

The political life doesn't much lend itself to anything but itself... that and fast food at least. The ounces of fries, pounds of bbq and gallons of sugar laced, jacked up old fashioned coca cola is immeasurable in those who some how manage to survive more than a month in, as Mario Puzo so amptly put it in The Godfather, "the business we have chosen."

Surely no one who has made the choice to prostitute himself out for causes that last six months and cost millions hasn't been blessed with "normal" wiring from God above. But, alas we are as Bill Cosby said of four year olds, "brain damaged."

The overtures to mafia are infinite... "everytime I think I'm out they pull me back in." And while no gunshots have been fired yet, the sport which we play is often as brutal and definitely as bloody. There are the competing families which incestously overlap and mingle together when the causes or cash deem it necessary. There are bosses and hitmen and goons. Everyone has a place and the only way one can move up is by knocking some higher up, with the knowledge, permission and approval of other higher ups of course.

Call it a modern day feudal system - not too disimilar from the post office out at dixiana - but it is what it is.

And for those few who have chosen to make a living at it, I can say with some degree of certainty that they would not change it for anything. The predictability of the corporate world - with it's pen striped gray suits, gray faces and gray cars- is tempting to say the least. But at the end of the day, I am still unwilling to trade my two day beard, docksiders and tj maxx purchased polo and the honor of having my few remaining strands of hair on fire that are undoubtedly stricken upright by the caffeine and A.D.D. medications coursing through my capillaries.

And so the at conclusion of my very first blog, as some Dick and Jane book would put it, I conclude nothing other than this: