The Voluntary Simplicity Movement.

Like many other young couples, Aimee and Jeff Harris spent the first years of their marriage eagerly accumulating stuff: cars, furniture, clothes, appliances and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys.

Now they are trying to get rid of it all, down to their fancy wedding bands. Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May.

"It’s amazing the amount of things a family can acquire," said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to "the ridiculous amount of money" her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca.

It has come to the point where things own us, not the other way around. For instance, we could say that Iraq owns us, since we chose to occupy that country. And we could say that John McCain would sell us into even more slavery by invading Iran in the same way.

This sort of rampant materialism has been part and parcel of the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan took over. We were told to buy, spend, and consume. At the height of the materialist culture championed by the Republican Party, you were supposed to get the SUV because it made you the dominant male of the neighborhood. "It only looks like this because it's badass" was a typical slogan back in the heady days when Bush was wildly popular and people thought that he could do no wrong.

This was the sort of thing that floored the Roman Empire as well -- the rampant greed, materialism, and chaos that is part of our society was also part of the Roman society as well, in a much greater degree. In fact, there was an actual SUV slogan that went, "Decadent. In an ancient Roman sort of way."

Now, don't get me wrong -- getting an SUV is a matter of personal choice, and there are practical reasons why one would want to buy one. But that is not how it was marketed. And there are similarities between the Voluntary Simplicity Movement today and the Christian movement of Roman times -- Christianity, like the Voluntary Simplicity Movement, offered people a chance to get away from the rampant decadence of the Roman Empire -- a society that was so cutthroat that it was big news in Rome when someone lived to their natural age.

There are others who became members of the movement partially as a matter of economic necessity -- one family profiled paid rents of $1,650 per month before deciding to radically downsize their lifestyle. Another family had a big screen TV which was won by their father as employee of the year -- just before he got fired.

There is a lot of attachment to things that we all share -- but let me ask you this -- what is more important, things, or the relationships we have with people? We can go to the store anytime to buy something; however, we can't take back a hurtful word we say. Barack Obama had it right -- words matter.

The mindless materialism of our society has not come without its costs. It has resulted in the systematic dumbing down of our country as the love of learning is something that is looked down on and our children are turned into test-taking robots. Our schools are turning into a worldwide embarrassment thanks to No Child Left Behind. And for those who would claim the states would make up the lack of funding, Missouri is 47th in teacher salaries even though it is in the median populationwise. The Republicans at the state level would do the same as Republicans at the national level -- dumb down our children so that they do not learn, but rather consume.

Many of these people have given up on politics ever since the travesty of 1968, where the elites decided that the will of the people did not matter. Now is the time to step forward and right the wrongs of 1968 and come together to heal the rift that has so plagued the Democratic Party. Our planet needs for us to come together to reject the mindless materialism that the Republicans offer that John McCain would fuel through keeping us in Iraq for 100 years and attacking Iran and abolishing the minimum wage. What little people would take home would be spent up in a mindless binge of shop 'til you drop.