All across this nation, enshrined in every home, rests a device that is bringing down our culture, our communities and ultimately, all that makes society good.Television, though a wonder of technology, cannot be counted among our greatest inventions. It is the worst, and it has destroyed more minds than any other human creation.I don’t dislike television. I hate it.That is not to say that I do not, on occasion, watch a television show; there is some truly great programming out there.Among these programs I count “South Park,” “The Daily Show” and the remaining fragments of good news found nowhere near the cable news channels – programs which not only entertain, but inspire the viewer to participate by thinking about their world: Though “South Park” is oftentimes crude, it does not offer crudeness alone.But most of those screens do not depict anything that comes anywhere near that which may be considered “great programming.” Most project streams of such utterly hollow drivel that it shrivels the mind and pacifies and devastates the body.And the force emanating from these sets has bound so tightly with many of us that the thought of getting rid of a television is nearly inconceivable.And it sometimes is hard. It really is. Television offers an easy and instantaneous escape from truly agonizing feelings and sensations of boredom. When we “quit” television, boredom is our withdrawal.But the whole world instead concerns itself with the dangerous and addictive effects of drugs and alcohol. That’s not to say that these things are not, or cannot be, truly dangerous, but I ask this: which has done more good for our culture?While abusing their bodies with dangerous substances, many have written novels, painted and drawn art, drawn strands of melody together to create music and bore new thoughts into being, I cannot think of a single person who has been inspired by television to create.I cannot think of a single person who has, in the slack-jawed paralysis of television watching, changed the world.And we are finding it more and more in our lives. Television now exists in places where there used to benone. They mount televisions in restaurants, at gas-pumps, even urinals. God forbid we should suffer a moment without it! And worst of all in the backseats of cars, so that parents may be spared their children’s boredom, we are installing the screens – indoctrinating and addicting a new generation.I hope reading this has made you feel what I feel. I hope, probably foolishly, that somebody will hear this and hit that power button. I hope you see what I see when I look at the world around me because across the nation I see many who have grown fat and stupid under the radioactive glow of the tube.I see many who would discuss the troubled lives of fictional characters, but fail to spend a moment’s consideration on the bum in the street with very real trials and tribulations as they breeze past.I see a horrible waste of countless lives. I see the killing of the soul. I see death before death and it comes with “a word from our sponsors.”