No More Free Rides

In July George Bush issued an order that basically said, if you so much as sell a candy bar to anyone who happens to obstruct the illegal Iraq War in any manner, the government can block your property (from use) without warning. The order doesn't say you have to know who you are dealing with. The Bush administration claims the right to overrule your constitutional right to property on the basis of guilt by accidental association. An order was later issued that extended the provisions of the first to acts that impede the current government of Lebanon.

Both orders have a provision, labeled Sec 1(b) in each, which states in effect that if any one person's property is blocked for any reason as a result of that order, than anyone having any dealings with that person shall also be subject to having their property blocked without a warning.

It isn't necessary to sell the candy bar to be dragged into the net. You can just give the candy bar to someone who has had their property blocked (you don't have to have known that their property has been blocked) or they can give you a candy bar! They can pick your address out at random and mail you a 3 Musketeers, or an Almond Joy, or a Butterfinger, or a Baby Ruth, or a Big Hunk, or a Bit-O-Honey... a Bit-O-Honey! You could lose the use of all your property just by getting a Bit-O-Honey bar in the mail from somebody's Uncle Tonoose! How rude!

What if you want your property blocked? According to some people most homeless people are that way because they wanted to be on the street and destitute. Let's say you're one of those thousands of wanna-be homeless people, who isn't homeless now, but can't wait. Maybe you're a CEO pulling in 7 figures annually and you think, "Hey, why am I busting my butt every day slaving for the Man, paying rent and taxes from my hard-earned money, when I could be living out of a cardboard box and sharing refried dumpster-beans with my new friend Chucky the Alley Rat?" How can you achieve the destitution you so achingly yearn for, without someone pointing you at your house and kicking you in?

In the New George Bush Post-Constitutional America it's easy! Commit any act of nonviolent civil disobedience that in any way, no matter how trivially, interferes with the government's war-making routine, and the administration can block all your property. They can lock you out of your own house! You'll be in homeless heaven!

For example, you can jaywalk in front of a convoy rolling out of Fort Lewis. If you hold them up a second, your property can be confiscated. Or you can block military recruiters from entering your kid's high school for five minutes, while you read them the Declaration of Independence. That's five minutes the war effort was obstructed. Your ass belongs to George! It's that easy!

Well, it's just too easy, says a lot of liberal activists. Rich Lang for one. Rich Lang is the minister of Trinity United Methodist in Ballard and he clearly thinks George Bush is making it too easy for rich people to become poor and live on our "easy streets" off the backs of hard-working Americans.

Rich says let's obstruct the obstructors and put an end to this unfair option. He wants every hard-working American to call in sick from work on Tuesday, September 11, 2007, and go out and perform nonviolent "acts of democracy."

I think that's a great idea. Let's not let Bush make it too easy for people to impoverish themselves! People should have to work for poverty, not have it handed to them on a silver platter!