Took the Words out of my mouth and said 'em better than I ever could 2004-01-20

"The minister wove a tinsel garland from the various bromides of sympathy and laid it upon the bowed heads of the mourners. He used words such as "heroism," "sacrifice," and "eternal reward," while the heads bobbed with sobbing, like corks in a popular fishing hole. Later, they carried the broken skeleton (yearning in its bones for rock 'n' roll) out back to the cemetery, dipped an American flag over it, fired shots in the air (as if it were the clouds' fault the boy had died), and, while a lonely bugle wounded the spring morning with sounds more mournful than a midnight freight, they slipped it below the vegetable layer into the mineral earth, to be compressed into gas for the jets of a future that Wyoming had not imagined yet.

"Lost now to family, buddies, girlfriend, rabbit hound, society, and himself, this poor young sailor had fallen--not very many miles from Jerusalem--understanding virtually nothing of the situation in Middle East. He probably believed it involved a struggle between right and wrong, good and evil, freedom and oppression. That was his second mistake. His third mistake was in trusting that even if he didn't understand the situation, his leaders did. His first--and worst--mistake was blindly doing what he was told to do. Without questioning their methods or their motives, he allowed politicians to make the decisions that led to his early demise.

"What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make other people's decisions for them? Liberty, the very opposite of ownership and control, cannot, then, result from political action, either at the polls or the barricades, but rather evolves out of attitude. If it results in anything, it may be levity...

"True freedom was an internal condition not subject to the vagaries of politics. Freedom could not be owned. Therefore, it could not be appropriated. Or controlled. It could, however, be relinquished. The Wyoming sailor had surrendered his soul long before he sacrificed his body. And that inner death was more lamentable than the physical death that followed.

"In the not too distant future, the veil that permitted political expediencies (usually transitory, often stupid, regularly corrupt) to masquerade as timeless universal expressions of freedom, virtue, and good sense, could conceivably fall away. Young persons, from then on, might be more particular about the "freedoms" they would be willing to defend, thus preserving their souls and--if quick enough of wit and foot--their bodies, as well."

--exerpted from Skinny Legs and All, by Tom Robbins, copyright 1990