Bigotry's Okay, Just Don't Take Our Money Away

          Congratulations America, you've really outdone yourself this time. Go on, give yourself a nice pat on the back, and while you're at it kick a puppy. No seriously, kick the damn puppy. Seriously. What's that? That's cruel? That's terrible? How dare I suggest such a thing even once, let alone twice—because you already did it. 

          Go ahead line up now. Senator McCain—where are you going? I insist you go first. It can't be that hard for a man like you. You say you're a man of ethics and character—indeed you used such an image to salvage your career after the Keating Five scandal. But are you really what you say you are? What about you Mr. McConnell? No clammy hands right Senators? No consciences being laden?

          Well come on then step right up. Today you are in the hot seat. Don't worry it's not just you, you're just the loudest and most prominent. So then again, it will be your name in the history book. Oh don't worry, I'm no Saint myself; then again, I don't make decisions that define a nation of over three hundred million. I'm just the genius that chose you to do it. So I guess I have no need to be infallible, now do I, no need to hold up to intense scrutiny. 

            Let’s see now. Oh I see the most certain tax plan includes breaks for wealthy estates as collateral for aid for the middle class and the poor. So Senator McCain, I guess your wife will get to keep more of her money after all. I mean, you always point out that your assets are split. I guess here we have a selfless act. No, wait sorry; I’m capable of rational thought, and that just isn’t the case. See, being selfless would have required sacrifice. All you did was renege on just about all of your previous political stances and hold oh, all but that top one percent of America hostage.

          Don’t worry though, Senator McCain, you got yourself re-elected. All is well. At least in your world it is, and well of course it is for you and yours. It’s just a shame yours couldn’t include the people who voted for you. You see, I don’t think your Tea Party fan club is part of the one percent. Something tells me though, that you are, and so are those “intellectual elitists.” Hmmm, that means you have more in common with those “commie bastards” than you would like to admit. That is—in addition to the fact that your groupies in Congress haven’t felt the pinch of recession either. I mean how could you? Two hundred thousand a year—imagine what Mrs. Bennet would say of such an income.

          So Senators, for now you all are keeping your incomes—even you guys in the back—we don’t know your names sorry, I apologize in advance for such a slight. Just don’t forget to budget the twenty five million dollars into the looming cuts in our big, evil, government services. Say, let’s start with defense spending. Speaking of defense, how about passing that Nuclear Arms Treaty with Russia before we end up with another country who used to lick bread crumbs off our fingers spurning us, or worse yet, another Cold War.

          But enough about that. They say people have got to learn to live in the present. “Say’s who,” you ask? After all, you wish to return America to her roots and thus former glory. Oh wait, you didn’t mean The Enlightenment? What did you mean then? Let’s see the Constitution, which we all know you’re all so in love with—indeed you all swore to uphold it—is influenced by the writings of the European philosophers of the Enlightenment Age, namely John Locke, Thomas Hobbess and Montesquieu, among others. Well, for the record Henry David Thoreau—don’t worry he’s American, only his name is French—for one; Albert Einstein—he helped make those bombs you’re so in love with—he did too; oh and it’s also in the Bible—we all have had it made quite clear to us that you guys love that—that’s right, in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter six, verse twenty four. Never mind that that Constitution you swore to uphold provides for the separation of Church and State, that’s like paying attention to the man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. 

          Speaking of the Bible, now I’m no expert myself, but I want to say there was this Jesus guy. He was sort of a big deal if I remember correctly he was all about the love. He had a puppy too didn’t you know, except he didn’t kick it. Oh no see, I’m employing a literary device called a metaphor. You don’t know what that is? Oh I forgot—No Child Left Behind ironically left our entire public pre-secondary education system behind. Of course, unlike those “liberal intellectual elitists” there’s no way you went to boarding school or private school. So you must have been schooled—read screwed—in our public school system too. Well anyway, a metaphor is an analogy using symbolism.

          Now, where was I? Oh yes, Jesus’ puppy was an adulteress. She—read puppy—was about to get stoned—read kicked—when he stopped the crowd. Since none of them were perfect people he told them not to judge, but merely to go on about their day. But wait? That’s not what you did was it. Come on don’t be shy. Speak up. Is that a “nay” I hear—can I get another chorus of them.

          Another chorus? What do I mean? Well earlier you Senators, whom we the people empower, voted to uphold—that is you said nay—a delicious little policy called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Now, as we progress to the Neolithic age please keep in mind that those foreigners don’t speak English either. So smile and wave. Just remember, the Romans could only hold off the Germanic tribes for so long before they came crashing down. What a glorious sight it must have been—Rome, bastion of freedom and ideas and progress—burning to the ground. However, Rome’s own people didn’t burn it down. I think they had something going on there.

          What’s that your reasons? Oh don’t worry I heard you all right. Religious and moral objections, morale issues, just frankly refuse to vote in favor of anything remotely influenced by those cankerous Democrats and their fearless Fuhrer. Don’t worry; when your own money is at stake it doesn’t count Senator McConnell; that would just be silly. 

          Well I believe I already refuted your religious objections. Feel free to interrupt me if I’m wrong there, I know you little McCarthy’s will anyway. As a rational human being I refuse to address the absurdity of never voting with the other side. So I guess, what we’ve got here is, an issue of morale. I can address that. No problem.

        Let’s see: “morale will be lowered” said in thousands of different ways pretty much sums up the argument quite adequately. Well frankly I’m surprised. No, no, not at the simplicity of the argument itself, but of the very notion that we could honestly lower morale. I don’t think it could be worse if every one of out troops were the protagonist from Erich Maria Remarque’s novel. By the way, since you send everyone off to war, you just may want to pick up a copy of it: All Quiet on the Western Front. How could our morale get worse? I mean, we’ve only been mired in two wars, that we’ve made absolutely no progress in, for nearly a decade now. Last time we fought for that long was well, never. Now, why oh why can’t we win? Furthermore, what exactly is it that we’re going to achieve by winning? What as a country—we already know about Halliburton’s stocks Mr. Cheney, wait sorry he’s no longer the puppet master—do we stand to gain? I mean a trillion dollars should have gotten us somewhere right? Nope. Not yet, at any rate.   

         Well America. We love money. We’re red blooded Capitalists after all. We’ll fight for our freedom and for the width of our wallets. We just go about it in the most cacophonic way possible. We’ll turn down patriots who want to, are, or used to be fighting for these causes because they’re homosexual. They’re going to hell right? Who cares? Don’t worry, smile, it’s all done in the name of freedom. For who now—well I can’t quite answer that now can I?

          Excuse me will you, the phone’s ringing—oh, it’s for you; I’ll take a message since you all are supposedly in session. Hold on, quiet now, I can’t quite hear. Hmmm. I understand. Of course. That shouldn’t be any sort of a problem. I’ll pass along the message. Um Senators, your attention please, I don’t quite know how to break it to you, but the American people called, and they want their money back; all twenty five million of it from each of the past few years.