Academics and citizens from Boston to San Diego have joined to form the Foundation for Reason and all-Encompassing Equality (FREE) — an organization that claims babies trump racism, sexism and even terrorism as the ultimate threat to free, democratic civilization.

“Babies are society’s leeches,” said Friedrich Jung, a professor of Economics at Harvard University. “They get the most by doing the least. You talk about rich kids getting the high-paying jobs and having it easy, but babies don’t even need jobs because they get everything bought and paid-for.”

After denying that his conscription into a last-ditch Hitler Youth regiment at the age of one in any way embittered him towards “draft-dodging babies,” Jung added, “America’s economy is a welfare state where the old pay for the young.”

In addition to its strong member base in the field of economics, FREE hosts a large faction of Constitutional purists who seek to provide legal grounds against the preferential treatment of babies. Political scientists like Professor Quinlan Hale say that youth-biased laws against child labor and baby abandonment “virtually guarantee the slavery of adults.”

“At the very least it’s involuntary servitude, because let’s face it, after the first couple of months, child-rearing becomes very, very involuntary.”

Frustrated, Hale then flipped open the perpetually ringing cell phone in his hand. “Yes, honey? Jesus, this will be the third time this month we’ve had to clean that carpet. Yes, I’ll pick up extra diapers on the way home.” He hung up the phone. “You see? That’s the kind of (expletive) I’m talking about.”

Indeed, Hale’s baby is a liability to more than just his mental and financial sanity. He says his social life has suffered as well, as he no longer has time to spend with his soon-to-be-former friends.

“With the valuable time and money that baby has stolen from me,” said Hale, “I figure that in a reasonable court of law I could sue him for anywhere between one- and two-million dollars.”

When approached for a more exact estimate, Professor Jung indicated that Hale’s baby is straining more than just his friendly relationships.

“Tell Hale to piss off. He’s a baby-hugger and a hypocrite.”

In a group dedicated to fighting baby oppression, much as in the professional world at large, having a baby assures the steady erosion of credibility. The irony of Hale’s particular situation is not lost on him. In a seemingly random incident at a conference in Denver, Hale punched in the face — and rendered unconscious — fellow FREE member and English professor Jonathan Seymour…for recommending the book Catch-22.

“What are you trying to say?” Hale shouted at Seymour’s motionless body.

Hale’s frustrations and the resulting assault charges, however, are just symptoms of a greater epidemic. The loneliness, forced labor and general sense of fatigue that afflict Hale will affect the majority of Americans at some point in their life. This near-ubiquity of the baby problem, as well as the government’s laissez-faire attitude toward it, is what led FREE to vote babies the number-one threat to democracy in a recent poll. This designation, according to FREE President Thomas Welch, is no exaggeration.

“Sure, terrorism is the threat-du-jour,” said Welch. “But once you get past the hype, you realize that it’s all been outsourced since 9/11. Babies affect more people in the here and now.”

And on the specific threat to democracy? Welch made it clear that babies — not terrorism — put the United States and its core values at risk.

“Terrorism unites people to favor the current establishment. What can a pro-baby government do but fear its own demise at the hands of a disgruntled populace? We need to start thinking about what kind of world we want for our children.”