Thinking Out Loud

First, my thoughts go out to the families and friends of those lost in Spain today. The world we live in is a tough one. One or two, or a few people with an axe to grind and enough money to get ahold of some high-yield explosives can sour a lot of people's lives in a second.

Here's a thought, and I'm interested in anybody else's thoughts.

A lot of these splinter groups form as a reaction to oppression (actual, or percieved) from authority figures.

We're getting a lot of movement from the authorities to clamp down on little things here lately. Whether it's the language on the radio, the skin on the television. Or making sure that something as inconsequential to our status as a nation as the definition of marriage stays within certain bounds. Or making people jump through 1900 different hoops when travelling, or dancing 89 different bureaucratic dances when it comes to anything else in our lives, nowadays (it is tax time, don't ya know?).

There are so many controls, small as they may be, being placed on our lives. Here lately, it's seemed that our government's not much more than a scold.

How many of these little pressures are the seeds for larger discontents down the road?

It's kind of like the story of the preacher's kid. Placed under the largest amount of discipline, they often rebel the hardest, and become the wildest of the bunch.

Just thinking out loud. With all the fines and scolding we've seen the FCC hand down lately, and with all the attempts to protect everybody's eyes and ears from anything horrible...how much is too much? At what point does the pressure create the dangerous splinters that we spoke of earlier?

I say all this not being completely clued in on the Spanish political situation. It's something I intend to read up on in the next couple of hours.

Again. Just thinking out loud.