How to legislate with a hammer
My colleagues here at the Tribune have done an admirable job of reporting on the $1 billion dollar lawsuit filed by some New York vampires. Rather than rehashing the details, then, let’s look at the suit within the bigger picture of Uncle Sam’s might.
The suit is the latest round in the newest weapon the U.S. can bring to bear on anybody it doesn’t like. Take, for example, the cigarette industry. When the politicians couldn’t shut it down, the government realized it could simply out muscle the industry by throwing lawsuits at it. Now, the firearms industry is up against the same thing. Indeed, the U.S. government is now so big and so powerful that it can do whatever it wants to do, one way or the other. If the legislative branch can’t get you one way, or the executive branch another, then somehow they’ll use the judicial process to hammer you.
True, the lawsuit at issue was filed by a private firm, but the principle of the situation is obvious. Anybody who runs afoul of the U.S. way of seeing things is, these days, subject to legal combat that is the pinstriped version of gunboat diplomacy. Keep in mind the court system is part of the government.
Americans love this new way of doing things. (Actually, so, too, would most folks here, to be truthful). The chief impediment to security and infinite government love in the mainland is that pesky document, the constitution. Some atavistic grouches still believe in that document, a fact that annoys both the left wing as well as the right. The American mainstream–the soccer moms and the shopping mall sheep–don’t want liberty, freedom, or equality. They want safety, security, and authority. And the government will certainly deliver as much of that as it can get away with.
Don’t ask me to justify Uncle Sam’s priorities. I don’t understand them. Americana spends more on bombs, missiles, and weapons than it does on cancer research. It sends millions of dollars into outer space, bragging about the technology involved, and yet it has not yet solved the neurological problems that could make many of the crippled walk (so we give them those cute blue parking spaces instead). Think about that next time you see someone crunched in a car wreck. There are hungry and homeless in the mainland, some sleeping on benches just outside of the White House, while billions of dollars flows overseas into the pockets of foreign governments.
America is an obedient society. It has been tamed, domesticated, and gelded. The television has replaced freedom and the symbol of longing and fulfillment. The majority of the electorate is now the soulless human zombies who are planted in cubicles, and who resent anyone who isn’t similarly enslaved.
Which means, then, that anybody who doesn’t see things the way the average Americano does is, somehow, The Enemy. If the face on the television screen says that an industry, a country, or a philosophy is bad, then it’s bad. Period.
