Bondage can be physical... or fiscal

Mention slavery to any American and visions of captured Africans shackled in chains and suffering every kind of abuse known to man comes to mind.

While this form of slavery is the most severe, there are other forms and degrees by which one might be condemned to bondage.

Debt, for instance, equals bondage.

Before 1972 the average family owned one vehicle. In 1972, there were 49 million families, and only 52 million registered vehicles. Because mothers started staying in the work force, they started to buy their own vehicle. In order to buy that vehicle, they had to go into debt and thus go into bondage.

Children no longer were a priority; divorce skyrocketed. Today there are just as many families (husband, wife and children) but there are 200 million vehicles. Our government is in debt for $18 trillion, and most Americans are in debt as well, so most Americans are in bondage, whether they admit it or not. —Fred Hammel, Kalispell