The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass (8 page)

ORWELL THAT ENDS WELL

 

New Rule:
Liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn’t asked Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror. On the contrary, he’s asked us to sacrifice something enormous: our civil rights. When I heard George Bush was reading my e-mails, I probably had the same reaction you did: “George Bush can read?” Yes, he can, and this administration has read your phone records, credit-card statements, mail, Internet logs—I can’t tell if they’re fighting a war on terror or producing the next season of
Cheaters.
I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning just on the hope they’ll open it and see what it says.

So when it comes to sacrifice, don’t kid yourself: You
have
given up a lot. You’ve given up faith in your government’s honesty, the goodwill of people overseas, and six-tenths of the Bill of Rights. Here’s what you’ve sacrificed: search and seizure, warrants, self-incrimination, trial by jury, cruel and unusual punishment; here’s what you have left: handguns, religion, and they can’t make you quarter a British soldier. If Prince Harry invades the Inland Empire, he has to bring a tent.

In previous wars, Americans on the home front made a very different kind of sacrifice. During World War II, we endured rationing, paid higher taxes, bought war bonds. In the interest of national unity, people even pretended Bob Hope was funny. Women donated their silk undergarments so they could be sewn into parachutes—can you imagine nowadays a Britney Spears or a Lindsay Lohan going without underwear? Okay, bad example.

George Bush has never been too bright about furreners, but he does know Americans. He asked this generation to sacrifice the things he knew we wouldn’t miss: our privacy and our morality. He let us keep the money. But he made a cynical bet that we wouldn’t much care if we became a “big brother” country that has now tortured a lot of random people. And yet no one asks the tough questions, like: “Is torture necessary?” “Who will watch the watchers?” and “When does Jack Bauer go to the bathroom?” It’s been five years; is he wearing one of those astronaut diapers?

After 9/11, President Bush told us Osama bin Laden could run but he couldn’t hide. But then he ran, and hid, so Bush went to plan B: pissing on the Constitution.

Conservatives always say the great thing Reagan did was make us feel good about America again. Do you feel good about America now? I’ll give you my answer, and to get it out of me, you don’t even have to hold my head under water and have a snarling guard dog rip my nuts off. No, I don’t feel very good about that. They say that evil happens when good men do nothing. And the Democrats prove it also happens when mediocre people do nothing.

 

 

—March 16, 2007