No matter where we live…no matter what neighborhood, state, or country…there is always someone trying to control our actions.

 

Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher jailed in Sudan for letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad, returned to her home this week.  She could have been given 60 lashes.  Instead she got to go to prison for several days…all because she broke Muslim law in Sudan. 

 

We can condemn Muslims for their strict rules, based on Islamic law (sharia).  We somehow feel above them for their primitive way of life and their primitive view of religion.  But when we turn around and look back at ourselves, we cannot help but see that in many ways we are no better.  We too have people who wish to control our every action…and we allow it!  Sometimes that control is in the name of religion but more often, in 2007, it is in the name of the fanaticism of the day.  In our secular society, fanaticism is generally secular.  The most dangerous of all of these new “religions” is the one we can call Environmental Fanaticism.

 

As far as I can tell, the majority of the members of this new religion are people with extreme personality disorders.  Many could probably be diagnosed as Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personal Disorder.  Many claim to have “environmental sensitivity”, meaning that they cannot be confronted with nature.  In many cases, this is because they have been avoiding nature for most of their lives and don’t know how to manage when they run into real life “threats” such as pollen, cold, heat, water, mold, mildew, or, God forbid, SMOKE.

 

Julie Mellum is apparently one such member of the religion of Environmental Fanaticism who also admits to “environmental sensitivity”.  She is the president of Minneapolis-based Take Back the Air, yet another group created to try to take away the rights of individuals.

 

In the 12/5/07 Minneapolis StarTribune, Ms. Mellum wrote the following (excerpted for your mental health):

 

“One big source of air pollution -- as deadly as vehicle exhaust, and with many of the same toxicants as cigarette smoke -- is wood smoke.  The Star Tribune's recent feature on the joys of back-yard wood burning (‘All fired up,’ Oct. 24) was so well-written and enticing that it no doubt caused sales of wood-burning equipment to skyrocket. Yet it did not address the perils (beware when leftists use this word…it portends control!) of wood smoke. Wood smoke is more than a nuisance -- it is a health hazard.

 

“Minnesota's antismoking ordinance allows people to go to bars and restaurants and avoid smoke, because tobacco smoke is a proven killer. (By the way, this is questionable at best.  The research on second hand smoke is so biased by the left that it is difficult to sort out truth from propaganda.)  Yet because we still allow recreational wood burning in the city, where homes are close together on small lots, it has become a serious livability problem. (Of course, the question then has to be asked, why do these people choose to live in congested areas on small lots when they have the same choices as everyone else to move, which is what they tell the rest of us to do when we complain about anything that happens in the suburbs. Oh, wait…I know the answer…because they are righteous and the rest of us are evil. )  All citizens are forced to breathe outdoor air that smells of smoke in many neighborhoods, night and day, in all seasons.

 

“There is so much smoke, either faint or heavy, that many hardly notice it anymore. (Which then suggests that there is no REAL problem.)  But wood smoke is there, heavy in most neighborhoods at night or around our many wood-fired restaurants, if you stop to notice. (meaning, if you obsess about it long enough.)

 

“Everyone is at risk from wood-smoke exposure…Are we OK with this? Aren't these facts reason enough to stop recreational wood burning?  (ahhh, NO!  There have been no FACTS provided…just emotional arguments with little if any merit.)  Why, then, do people continue to burn? First, because they don't know how harmful it is. Second, because it is strongly promoted by the hearth and home industry. And third, because burning wood is an addiction.  (So, all of us are either stupid, being controlled by evil capitalists and stupid, or addicted and stupid.  Of course the addiction to Environmental Fanaticism is okay.) 

 

“I cannot be outside at all when wood smoke is in the air, because I have a ‘reactive airways’ condition affected by it. (Oh yes, here is the “environmental sensitivity” issue that I mentioned earlier.  This woman has apparently never gone outside except to complain.)  I ache for clean air outdoors in a world where nature often is our only respite. (By the way, there is SMOKE in nature, Julie.)  Bad air is forcing many others I know inside when, as city taxpayers, we have a right to be outside breathing clean air.

 

“We must urge our City Council members to ban recreational wood burning…”  (And here is the punch line…Julie wants the government to BAN yet another activity disliked by the left.)

 

Well, here is what I want.  I want the government to ban morons like Julie Mellum from living in my city.  She can move to some part of the world that does not burn wood.  Oh wait, where would that be?  Maybe Julie should move to a biosphere with a controlled environment.  But then she would probably be complaining about mold or mildew or warmth or rain or plants or lights or…

 

So, how are we different from the Middle East?  In Sudan Muslims prevent free expression.  In America we have people like Julie who are succeeding in doing the very same thing. 

 

Here is the difference.  It won’t be long before Americans really do get fed up and see the freedoms that are being lost every day.  When THAT happens, watch out.

 

Julie, get a life…leave the rest of us alone!