The Balance of Threat

Take away the war.

Anyone who does not know someone who cares about someone that is deployed abroad doesn’t really matter, They don’t get it, and they generally don’t give a fuck. Most of them are more sensitive to a sudden spike to their gasoline or heating costs than they are to the sudden revelation that they no longer have any fourth amendment rights.

Call me bitter, but I do get frustrated with the level of ignorance and apathy I encounter in my day-to-day life.

But there is someting else crawling up my ass. I want to know what changes the left-wing would impose upon the country if we suddenly took over all control of the government?

God forbid, we might impose universal health care on the nation. Just two nights ago I spent an hour with a man that thought the Democrats would make the nation weak, but who barely complained over a tooth he had to have pulled because he couldn’t afford a root canal when he had no dental insurance.

We might give the right, to gay couples, to establish the same financial and legal relationships that we allow straight people to make. Serial adulterers like Bob Barr and Newt Gingrich might have to explain why they can’t provide a upbringing as monogamous and as all-america apple pie wholesome as Rosie O’Donnell.

We might be soft on the racism associated with a political campaign designed to mobilize white male Protestant Americans against hispanic immigration.

We might hurt the quarterly estimates of any number of government contracters that depend on the Federal Government’s succor.

But will we threaten your right to free speeech, freedom of assembly, freedom from unreasonable search, freedom to hear the charges against you, freedom to a speedy trial?

No. We won’t. Democrats threaten no rights.

Republicans threaten a women’s right to choose, our right to be secure in our persons, and our whole constitutional system. The most rogue Democrats only threaten your disposable income.
As we try to come to grips with our worst paranoid ravings coming true, that the current administration has no repect for the Bill of Rights, we need to consider the nature of the assault.

Maybe Bill O’Reilly and Lou Dobbs have succeeded in making most of voting America think that they should be afraid of terrorists amd Central Americans, but the truth is that the most American’s standard of living is not very much threatened by Al-Qaeda or illegal Mexican immigration.

Actually, most American are not under threat. The threat is manifest. Tne threat is that we will shop for Holiday gifts while ChimpNero burns the Bill of Rights.

Author: BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.