Undiscovered Laws

It's become a fundamentally unserious time. A reprise of the '90s. Somehow. Somehow. Fiddling while Rome burns. Fiddling with ourselves. Sex scandals always favor the Democrats, it seems. clinton’s. Foley’s. It’s a previously undiscovered law of politics -- I'm a political genius. I suppose it's because Democrats are only offended by the idea of Republican sex. Republicans are offended by all sex. Illicit, I mean ... did I mention illicit? I'm Republican, and I love sex, and not just for procreation. Love love love it. Theoretically. But in this silly time, let us concern ourselves, in this frivolous era, in this Gelded Age, in these Roaring Naughts nights, with gay marriage. What other vital issues could there be?

If there is some inimical and unrelenting foe, who spends every waking moment not simply plotting our destruction, but working for it, well, we’ll let our children worry about that. Our children can face the crises. Of Social Security. Of Iraq. Our sons will deal with it. And what is this enemy, this unrelenting and focused and not at all incompetent enemy? The left? The media? Well, yes, we don't have to leave either of our coasts and sail for a distant continent, to find the vast host of an enemy. There are several such armies, at home and abroad, foreign and domestic. The crop of the home grown muharibun has been reaped. Partially. Firstfruits. The foreign harvest is ripening. But we'll let our sons deal with that. Now, in their youth, as soldiers in the field. Later, in their middle age, on the homefront.

In such a dire time, we are unserious. We throw a tantrum because self-seeking pols are pols who are self-seeking. What? -- we're expected to compromise? No! Politicians must be aroused by each of our passions! And the pols? Why, didn't Rove devise the perfect scheme? Get out the vote. Just get out the vote. It was a great plan. Until it stopped working. Because, it seems -- and this is another law that I'm discovering -- the voters whose votes you get out, well, they have to vote the way you want them too. And if they're having a tantrum, it doesn't matter if they stay home, or vote. They won't vote the way the vote-getter-outers want. Lesson to be learned: baby wants candy.

We are unserious. Is it some sort of fatigue? How can that be, when we've done, really, so little? Yes, Iraq, of course. But there was once an age of rationing, victory gardens and war bonds. Was that time any more dire than now? Was Pearl Harbor a greater hit than the Twin Towers? Per President Coolidge, the business of America is business -- business, not the Navy. So what if we had let the Japs take the Pacific? We can do business with Hitler. We can trade with tyrants. We get a fair bit of oil from Venezuela, after all. And the Japanese didn't want to destroy us. Not right away. They just wanted power. Who can blame them for that? But for all that, fighting them was a great sacrifice, which was undertaken with grave seriousness. Fighting, vanquishing, and reforming. Where have we failed, today? In which of these three?

Fighting the Islamists is a sacrifice only for soldiers and their families. So screw them. The rest of us will enlarge our breasts and have our excess body hair removed. I, for instance, will be shaving my pubes. It's so much more youthful. I'll feel like a little boy. Somebody else can take care of me. And caring about responsibilities is so boring. The media can tell me what to think. And the media informs us, incessantly, that we are losing in Iraq. So we must be losing. I mean, didn't Tokyo Rose tell us we were losing? Why would she lie? And it all worked out in the end. Someone took care of us. Someone else. And they're all mostly dead now anyway. Um, so, uh, my point is ... well, my point is that just as the previous generation took care of us, the next generation can take care of us too. And the media. It's telling us to stop worrying and love the islam bomb. It's a mantra, that we’ve heard so very much. Over and over and over. That must be where the fatigue comes in. Repetative strain injury of the ear.

The way to win this war ... but it’s lost. Another undiscovered law: the way we could have won this war, would have been to buy earplugs.



J