Usually, if I would have trouble deciding what to write about, I would blame it on being depressed. Maybe my pet monkey was just assassinated, or maybe I just found out that a certain legally prescribed medication shouldn't be, too late to stop it from turning me into a hairless goat. Or maybe my country was just taken over by yahoos and I started wishing I could move somewhere that had a constitution that the government in power respected.
Downturns like those can ruin your perspective so that you can't see straight enough to write about anything in particular, so you write about everything and hope for the best.
But upturns can have the same effect, I now know. Last week I got such good news that I am now giddy as a schoolgirl. I won't say why, because I'm such a tease, but I will instead distract you all with this: seeing Colin Powell sing as the construction worker in the Village People gave me new life and hope for America. How can you not love a man who can swing a hammer from his belt like that? Am I right, girls?
So here I am, feeling so good I'm ready to say: this IS the best of all possible worlds! Let's count our blessings!
Hooray! Saddam Hussein is being tried by the people we installed in his place, the very same ones we picked out because they hated Saddam the most! How great is that? They're even following our democratic example and making him submit to interrogation without letting him once see a lawyer! Not only that, but they're charging him with invading another country (Kuwait) without provocation! Our newly created allies have learned American democracy perfectly, and are beginning to master American hypocrisy too! I'm sure Saddam will have a wonderful trial, much better than any he could get from an international court. Maybe the Iraqis will even behead Saddam, encouraging more insurgents to behead more of us! Off with everyone's head!
Hooray! It's now OK for the President of the Senate to tell a Senator to go F-himself whenever it makes him "feel better"! Abuse of power and position be damned! It just feels good to tell the leader of the party out of power off for having the audacity to criticize one's precious self and one's superior political opinions. It's especially great to be able to tell some Democrat to go F-himself the same day Republican legislation passes to fine the bejeezus out of anyone else using the same word on TV or radio. Did someone say "hypocrisy"? I should have to call it H, or pay a gigantic fine! But even when we can't say it in print our leaders will still H. It will make them feel better!
Most of all, hooray for the newfound uses of detaining innocent people while calling them terrorists without formally charging them!
Last week the Supreme Court said you can't merely hold people as "enemy combatants" indefinitely. Eventually you have to allow them to legally challenge their detention, or you have to release them. This is called "human rights", something that we have said we were for, at least for the past 228 years or so, when we weren't doing the H-thing.
But the court will let the President detain potentially innocent people for reasonable periods of time, whatever that might be. I was worried about this loophole until I heard that the New York Times was reporting that the US, with Britain, had secretly traded Saudi prisoners held at Gitmo for Brits that had been tortured and held by the Saudis. How heartening.
The released Saudis were surely innocent; our government would never, NEVER, trade real terrorists even for innocent Westerners. That would be letting the terrorists win.
So there is something to be said for locking up innocent people, after all! Think of them as if they were pennies. Have a prisoner, give a prisoner! Need a prisoner, take a prisoner! It just saves trouble, and that's what America is all about!
Oh no. I AM a hairless goat.
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