Like many of us, my mind of late has been captivated by the negotiations surrounding the so called ‘fiscal cliff’. Sadly, I am terrified of heights and thus have very little real-life experience with actual cliffs to draw pertinent insights from for this dire situation. Most of my cliff-related knowledge comes from watching their navigation by Wile E. Coyote, from whose experiences I can draw the lesson that going off a cliff is fine as long as you never stop running.
The gist of the governmental logjam that has so captivated our attention seems to be a very simple revenue issue: specifically, there is concern that we don’t have enough. The fear is that our government is running such a huge debt load that if we don’t achieve a balance soon all sorts of biblically dire consequences may occur: anything from the rise of the dreaded European-style socialism to an all-out Greece-style national-collapse to an apocalyptic boiling of the oceans (a boiling that will come about as a result of God’s hot angry wrath at our permitting homosexuals to marry, and will in no way be related to any human-caused warming of the globe).
Like any debate about monies this one has two axes: the first is increasing revenues, which is an argument largely about taxes and has already been more or less been resolved (If you’re rich—don’t worry: everything will be just fine). The other aspect has to do with cutting expenses, and this is the loggerheads at which we’re presently stuck.
Despite the fact that our country already spends more money on defense than every other nation on this planet combined, most conservatives go apoplectic over any suggestion to reductions in military spending; while on the other side of things most liberals respond to proposed cuts in social services by crafting earnest and sharp-toned oppositional emails to their local NPR station.
Neither side seems capable of communicating clearly with the opposite, and as a result of this impasse we as a country now stand atop a precipice at which seemingly nothing gets achieved except the escalation of idiotic language. (Can we not all acknowledge that calling anyone ‘Hitler’ or a ‘Nazi’ might not be a great way to open constructive dialogue with anyone, and especially an opposition party??)
Our staff here at And Why Not? has been diligently studying this problem and we believe that we have discovered a solution that will be welcomed by both sides in this debate. Our plan is simple and pragmatic and makes use of existing programs to satisfy the demands of both sides of the political spectrum. We aim to achieve an immediate and measurable reduction in expenses, and we will do so without any cuts in defense spending or cuts in social service spending. We will achieve this by the following:
We believe that the US Military should use its superior array of technology to kill all US citizens who fall into any of the following categories: the chronically homeless, the chronically poor, the chronically mentally ill and the chronically unemployed. (We believe it’s important to emphasize “chronically” as a way of distinguishing persons who clearly have no interest in improving their lots from those homeless/poor/mentally ill/unemployed persons who demonstrate an interest in pulling themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps and who will, in doing so, serve as the basis for inspirational Lifetime movies we can show our children when football season is over.)
Let’s bottom-line the situation we’re facing: the people in the above-listed groups are suckling from the collective teat like ravenous calves, and to that we say: why pay to raise an animal that will probably suffer from Mad Cow Disease when we can have veal for dinner instead? These people are succubi, vampire bats, lechers and leakers, insatiable holes in the wineskins of our collective American well-being. And their obstinance to self-improvement is damaging our national well-being as well as causing us some serious cash-flow problems.
We believe that focused, immediate and lethal action will resolve this egregious and unnecessary problem. The outcome will be an instantaneous reduction in the rosters of those demanding social services, which means less spending, which is another way of saying more income, and all without cuts to military spending or a reduction in social service programs. In short: Everybody wins.
We feel it’s best to leave it to the military to determine the implementation this plan: after all, look how well they planned for our arrival in Iraq a few years ago. That said, we would like to take a moment and remind governmental planners of our nation’s internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. In light of such a successful and established precedent why not play to our national strengths and start rounding folks up today??
We would also like to suggest that planners consider using unmanned drones to accomplish this program’s stated goals. As some know, our country’s usage of drones to assassinate bad guys has drawn some harsh criticisms around the world, as apparently not all persons in Afghanistan wearing turbans are terrorists (who knew?). Some we have assassinated have even turned out to be American citizens, a fact that could be uncomfortable should you think upon it long, so we recommend that you don’t. As a result of these oopsies, there have been claims that our drone program leads to errant and unjustified killings of civilians.
We believe that following our plan will allow our service personnel to hone their drone navigation skills. By practicing targeted killings in heavily populated American cities, service men and women will not only trim off our country’s needless underbelly of riff-raff but will also improve the overall military efficiency of all future drone programs, both here and abroad. Once again, everybody wins!
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As a sample standard for the drone program: if an operator can differentiate between an urban hipster and an under-the-bridge-dwelling bum, he or she is ready for active duty: a test which we invite you to take below. Can you distinguish between the New York model and the one who lives in New York’s subway system??
