STOP IT! JUST STOP IT!

by Rich Miles

Attn: Radical Right-wing Republicans who still support Bush: Don't you know you are destroying America? Seriously, it's not the liberals who are killing America. It's you - and you have to stop soon, before it's too late!

Can you possibly have your heads so far up George Bush's backside that you can't see how badly he, and by your complicity you, are destroying everything - everything - that distinguishes America from the rest of the world? Can you possibly be so filled with fear and hatred that you can't look past today's ration of same to see how your hero, George W. Bush, is trying to turn America, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, into a fascist police state controlled by the worst men ever to hold power? Can you say 'kakistocracy'? Do you have any idea what it means?

I know I'm not the first person to say these things, and I sincerely hope I will not be the last. But the latest madness issuing from your 'Beloved Leader' just makes me want to puke. Even more than the last bunch of pandering to the alleged 'base', the anti-gay hate rhetoric that would write discrimination against a class of Americans into the U.S. Constitution, made me want to puke. It's a helluva way to lose weight.

Can you really not see that the whole immigration issue is nothing more than an appeal to the worst, most xenophobic, hate-filled instincts of red-state America? Can you really imagine that building a wall across the Mexican border, at HUGE cost, is really going to solve the problem of illegal immigration? Can you not see that, if Bush federalizes the National Guard, again at HUGE cost in both dollars and manpower, he has in effect hired his own private army, who will then be entirely under his command? Do you understand what the Posse Comitatus Act even means?

Sure, it's necessary to control immigration, no matter where the emigres come from. But that's not what's at work here. What is at work here is nothing less than the demonization of an ethnic group for the political gain of a majority party that is in danger of losing majority status. The actions now being taken or considered are NOT going to do anything to correct the problem - but it WILL get a lot of Mexican immigrants legal or otherwise, and more to the point Mexican-AMERICANS, U.S. citizens, beat up or worse.

The Senate passes - not just reports out of committee, but PASSES - a law making English the "national language" - and you applaud this as a needed action to save the Republic. Fuck the Meskins, if they don't want to learn the language let them go back to Mex-land where they came from!

You don't even NOTICE all the things the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration they kowtow to have done to take money out of your pocket, to hurt YOU, to consolidate control over all of us, not just the lefties you so despise. You think your one-party government is going to do everything you want them to do, and liberals can just go fuck themselves if they don't like it.

Do you not understand that Bush is NOT INFALLIBLE? Is it that hard for you to let go of your worship of him, even if continuing means serving your children up to him on an olive-drab platter? Does it not even cause you to raise an eyebrow when the president of the United States says that God speaks directly to him? Are you really that unreality-based?

Something like 63% of you say, as some polls have shown, that you're willing to give up a little personal freedom and privacy, as long as Daddy W will keep you safe from the bad old Osama and friends. And you haven't read enough history to even KNOW that Benjamin Franklin warned us against this very phenomenon more than 230 years ago:

"Those who would surrender essential liberty for a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin's Thirteen Virtues

It's not just a clever little phrase from some old leftie. It's our future. And you - those who think it's OK for the government to spy on us because you have nothing to hide (and believe me - everyone has SOMEthing to hide) are the ones who are making America into a collection of gulags, and an international pariah.

Have you traveled outside of America lately? To Europe perhaps, or Africa or Asia?

Of course not, sorry I asked. They don't have NASCAR in those countries, and the animals you would hunt in those other places are not squirrels and rabbits and deer, they are big and scary, and actually require some skill to bring down. So you've probably never been there, and thus you don't know:

We are HATED around the world. Yes, we've always had some enemies, but we've also, historically, had lots of friends the world over. But no more.

My wife is Scottish, so I go to Scotland once a year to visit the Auld Folk. One of the friendliest countries in the world to Americans - until last year, 2005. Last year, the people I had met in prior years, and the strangers I liked to talk to in pubs, had a sort of suspicious air about them. They were willing to forgive us for electing a madman once - but when we did it a second time (and I still don't acknowledge we did) , they had to wonder if they'd placed too much faith in good ol' American know-how. And that hurt me, because it made a country I had loved feel not quite so much like a second home.

So stop it, OK? Stop letting a total sociopath who cares NOTHING for you, who considers you and us merely tools to achieve his goals, run our country into the grave. Stop thinking he's on your side. Stop believing he can give you anything you want, or keep you safe, or make the nasty old liberals go away, because he can't. All he can do, and he's done that remarkably well, is to make the rich richer, and the rest of us poorer, and America despised around the world.

If you can't think of any other reason, can you at least consider: what if the power you're giving Bush now, one day devolves into the hands of Hillary Clinton? Will that scare you enough to rein him in?