Trip & Fall
I may be a little slow on the uptake for such things, but the whole Republican thing strikes me as a plain old, ages-old, garden variety power trip. It's a fevered rush for more and more.
More what, you ask? Well, aren't you little Miss Beside-The-Point!
MORE. If they qualified it with concrete units like dollars or acreage, it would just burst the illusion they've convinced themselves of: that they're actually ascetic monks bringing the Right Way of Life to us over-intellectual-yet-unwashed elitists.
Believe it. They talk about sacrifice and they talk about god's favor; the sacrifice comes in the form of obscene cost in materials and human lives. And god's favor? Well, they hate our way of life, and our way is christian, right, Right? Saddam Hussein is a secular power, incompatible with religious ascendancy in every last way. That's why we got rid of him, right, Right?
Treating his own people like second class citizens, over-burdening their lives and for what? For his own selfish needs! President Bush and his flunkies would never do that kind of thing! Only evil people like Saddam.
Sure, he's selfish and secular and thinking only of himself. That's why he was in league with religious extremists—Islam's analog to Christianity's KKK—ready to throw away all he had acquired to serve the needs of his god and his relig—wait a moment, I think I got lost somewhere.
You have to credit President Bush for convincing his followers that somehow a secular elitist could be compatible with religious extremists who are willing to sacrifice everything in the name of their own righteous faith. You have to credit President Bush for all but erasing the plain unvarished fact that bin Laden is a Saudi. You remember the Saudi's, right? Our partners in crime peace?
Follow the acquisitive ones, that's really all you have to do. Who's better off because Saddam is gone? Who's worse off because of spending gone out of control? Who's dead because of it all?
Maybe President Bush will win the election; I mean, anyone who can turn the worst tragedy to befall our country into Happy Camping for himself has to be able to make it appear like he's won an election, right?