The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass (15 page)

BOY BLUNDER

 

New Rule:
Republicans must stop pitting the American people against the government. Last week, we heard a speech from Republican leader Bobby Jindal—and he began it with the story that every immigrant tells about going to an American grocery store for the first time and being overwhelmed with the “endless variety on the shelves.” And this was just a 7-Eleven—wait till he sees a Safeway. The thing is, that “endless variety” exists only because Americans pay taxes to a government, which maintains roads, irrigates fields, oversees the electrical grid, and everything else that enables the modern American supermarket to carry forty-seven varieties of frozen breakfast pastry.

Of course, it’s easy to tear government down—Ronald Reagan used to say the nine most terrifying words in the English language were “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” But that was before “I’m Sarah Palin, now show me the launch codes.”

The stimulus package was attacked as typical “tax and spend”—like repairing bridges is left-wing stuff. “There the liberals go again, always wanting to get across the river.” Folks, the people are the government—the first responders who put out fires—that’s your government. The ranger who shoos pedophiles out of the park restroom, the postman who delivers your porn.

How stupid is it when people say, “That’s all we need: the federal government telling Detroit how to make cars or Wells Fargo how to run a bank. You want them to look like the post office?”

You mean the place that takes a note that’s in my hand in L.A. on Monday and gives it to my sister in New Jersey on Wednesday, for 44 cents? Let me be the first to say, I would be thrilled if America’s health-care system was anywhere near as functional as the post office.

Truth is, recent years have made me much more wary of government stepping aside and letting unregulated private enterprise run things it plainly is too greedy to trust with. Like Wall Street. Like rebuilding Iraq.

Like the way Republicans always frame the health-care debate by saying, “Health-care decisions should be made by doctors and patients, not government bureaucrats,” leaving out the fact that health-care decisions aren’t made by doctors, patients, or bureaucrats; they’re made by insurance companies. Which are a lot like hospital gowns—chances are your ass isn’t covered.

 

 

—March 6, 2009

 

DEPLOY, VEY!

 

New Rule:
Forget bringing the troops home from Iraq. We need to get the troops home from World War II. Can anybody tell me why, in 2009, we still have more than sixty thousand troops in Germany and thirty thousand in Japan? At some point, these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves. Our soldiers have been in Germany so long they now wear shorts with black socks. You know that crazy soldier hiding in the cave on Iwo Jima who doesn’t know the war is over? That’s
us.

Bush and Cheney used to love to keep Americans all sphinctered-up on the notion that terrorists might follow us home. But actually, we’re the people who go to your home and then never leave. Here’s the facts: The Republic of America has more than five hundred thousand military personnel deployed on more than seven hundred bases, with troops in one hundred fifty countries—we’re like McDonald’s with tanks—including thirty-seven European countries—because you never know when Portugal might invade Euro Disney. And this doesn’t even count our secret torture prisons, which are all over the place, but you never really see them until someone brings you there—kinda like IHOP.

Of course, Americans would never stand for this in reverse—we can barely stand letting Mexicans in to do the landscaping. Can you imagine if there were twenty thousand armed Guatemalans on a base in San Ber-nardino right now? Lou Dobbs would become a suicide bomber.

And why? How did this country get stuck with an empire? I’m not saying we’re Rome. Rome had good infrastructure. But we are an empire, and the reason is because once America lands in a country, there is no exit strategy. We’re like cellulite, herpes, and Irish relatives: We are not going anywhere. We love you long time!

 

 

—March 27, 2009

 

STAR DREK

 

New Rule:
Human beings are such slobs, from now on pigs must declare us the other white meat. Do you know that right now there’s so much discarded trash in outer space that three times last month the international space station was almost hit by some useless hunk of floating metal, not unlike the international space station itself? Really, you’ve got to give the human race credit. Only humans could visit an infinite void and leave it cluttered. Not only have we screwed up our own planet, somehow we’ve also managed to use up all the space in . . . space.

History shows over and over again that if the citizens of earth put their minds to it, they can destroy anything. It doesn’t matter how remote or pristine, together, yes, we can
fuck it up.
The age of space exploration is only fifty years old, and we have already managed to turn the final frontier into the New Jersey Meadowlands. You know what’s up there? Old satellites, spent rocket boosters, Neil Armstrong’s golf club, that canister with Gene Roddenberry’s ashes, empty Tang jars, discarded astronaut diapers—more than one hundred thousand items, my favorite being a NASA space glove, which in 1965 was lost by astronaut Ed White. I can’t tell you why he had his glove off, except to say that in space, it can get very lonely.

The reason this is so worrisome is something called the Kessler syndrome, wherein the more debris there is flying around, the more collisions occur, which exponentially expands the amount of debris, making it impossible to keep satellites up there . . . pretty soon we lose the cell phone networks, and then we face a world where teenagers are forced to send one another pictures of their genitals by mail.

Of course, the other seemingly limitless expanse we’ve endangered lately is the ocean. Which we’re killing. Why? Because the Bible says God gave us dominion over the earth—which is taken to mean that God was saying, “This is your rental car—taketh it, and beateth the shit out of it. For who careth, it is a rental.”

Did you know that there is now floating in the Pacific Ocean a 3.5-million-ton island of shit made up of all the indestructible crap we toss away, the stuff that will never break down, like Styrofoam and old Clorox bottles. And it’s twice the size of Texas—that’s right, the Pacific Ocean now contains more white trash than Texas.

 

 

—April 3, 2009