This nation is built on dependency. We gained our freedom from Great Britain and created government. That was good. We then passed laws creating civil rights and liberties, protecting the unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence. That was good. Then came politics: rulings, bills, and amendments granting more and more personal liberty. Along with it came restriction. This was a compromise.

Then came public education. This great train-wreck began with segregated schools. This practice was declared unconstitutional, and the schools were brought together. There was a great deal of tension, but we found this to be good as well.

Then there came free-thought, a Renaissance of America. Great masses of people began to see things outside the box of uniform ideals. New material was created and herds of students flocked to it. Opinions were formed and the people joined together in saying that they thought that this, in fact, was good.

And government in its brilliant Machinery saw the minions of the populous uncovering the secrets of Language and Science. For the first time in years, sprockets began to grind, dry of the lackadaisical oil that made them impervious before. Metal upon metal, this giant clock was winding down. And government saw a threat.

And then came the educational standards. Standards for teaching, standards for testing, standards for safety, standards for budget, standards. And teachers across America began to abide by these standards, following the rules and regulations defined by the exactness of the Machine. And they became lazy. Minds became dull. Thinking stopped. Bodies moved on. The flow of oil could again be heard.

Teaching became sterile. Exact in its newfound perfection, idea became theory, and theory became law. Where teachers saw uncertainty, they made postulates. Where there was inconsistent opinion, there became unity. Teaching, after all, was the process by which deviants were standardized. And teaching continued, but education became but a murmur in the background, belittled and downtrodden, left for dead within the sharp briars of a definite perfection. And the masses did not know what was good.

And the students went about their day-to-day business, accepting what was around them without any skepticism. Ideas were passed from the minds of the teachers to the minds of the students at an alarming rate. A new generation of robots was born, fully integrated and compliant. The Machine saw this and was happy.

And for a number of years, the gears and sprockets went about their business, each one dependant on the next higher level. Motors turned gears, gears taught sprockets, and sprockets pulled the mighty chain which turned wheels of oblivion. But the giant Machine was without an operator, completing process by process to mechanical entropy. The Machine was built on blind dependancy.

And then came an opinion. From a world of ignorance, one light. It spoke. "God forbid we think for ourselves. God forbid we break standards for progress. God forbid we see again what we once saw, outside the box." And then came the future ...