Brave Ugly New World

A few months ago, an old friend e-mailed me to let me know that he was no longer going to read my blog or comment on any of my Facebook posts because I was unfairly, wrongly, and overly critical of the Republican Party, while giving a free pass to the Democrats. I replied that he was partly true in that I'm much harder on Republicans than on Democrats because I am, at heart, a fiscal and social conservative, but that I'd been utterly disgusted by the social/economic/political mush that passes for rational public policy in the modern conservative era. Let us not forget that Senator Mitch McConnell said before the last election that the GOP's primary goal was to make sure that Mr Obama would be a one-term president. When that didn't work out, their primary goal became to make sure that the Obama administration would be completely unable to accomplish anything at all, by whatever means necessary. Perhaps it's just me, but I think that's a pretty poor excuse for public policy.

As I've written here often enough, if I'm harder on the GOP, it's because I think I should be able to expect more from thinking conservatives ... and there are darned few of those any more, let me tell you.

So it occurred to me to wonder what might happen if the Tea Party and "traditional" Republicans are ever able to quit stabbing each other in the back and actually employ enough social and economic smoke and mirrors to win the presidency (and, God forbid, both houses of Congress). Here are a few of the things we might expect ...

- The Internal Revenue Service would be shut down and all taxes eliminated. The few government agencies allowed to remain (other than the Department of Defense and anything perceived as good for big business) would be required to generate their own funding via bake sales, car washes, and similar activities.

- The Department of Health and Human Services would be closed and replaced with the Department of Get Off Your Lazy Ass and Quit Whining.

- The National Weather Service would be shut down. After all, everyone can just look out the window and see what the weather is like.

- The Department of Defense would revert to its original name, the Department of War.

- The National Academy of Sciences would be replaced by the National Academy of That's What the Bible Says, End of Discussion.

- Congress would reorganize itself to eliminate all committees and subcommittees and replace them with a single Senate/House Permanent Select Committee on Investigating All the Horrible Stuff the Democrats Do.

- The Constitution would be revised by moving the Second Amendment up to the main body of the text, making it Article I, and renumbering the subsequent articles. The pesky limitations on the imposition of religious tests for office holders would be removed from Article VI, and the part of the First Amendment that talks about Congress "mak(ing) no law respecting an establishment of religion" would be amended to specify that it excludes the Christian religion.

- Immigration reform would go high-tech, with large investments made to seal the border using the technology introduced by Stephen King in his novel, Under the Dome.

- All government facilities would be required to have a minimum eight-foot tall statue of Ronald Reagan prominently displayed. All government facilities not already named for Ronald Reagan would be appropriately renamed. The fact that Ronald Reagan would have been disowned by the present-day Republican Party would continue to be conveniently ignored.

- Social Security would be eliminated and the Social Security Trust Fund redistributed to fund tax cuts for the wealthy and job creators^TM. Elderly people would be encouraged to relocate to other countries.

- Medicare and Medicaid would be eliminated and replaced by the distribution (at cost) of home first-aid kits.

Welcome to the brave new GOP world*.

Have a good day. Think for yourself, not in political slogans and bumper stickers.

See you back here for Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

* With apologies to Aldous Huxley.