***** BEGIN SECURE TRANSMISSION *****

As many of you know, I do occasional free-lance work for the CIA. Sometime ago, the CIA requested that I do an assignment in Baghdad. I have decided to do my patriotic duty and serve my country by accepting this assignment. I boarded a chartered CIA jet a few days ago and flew directly to Baghdad International Airport.

My assignment had two phases. Phase I was posing as a journalist and conducting a Trojan horse interview with Saddam Hussein. Phase I complete. Phase II was gathering signal intelligence on the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary units operating in Baghdad. Report on Phase II follows.

I’m here on the streets of Baghdad, Iraq. Skirmishes between various Iraqi fighters and American troops have been erupting throughout the day. The chatter of automatic weapons fire is often punctuated with the blood-curdling battle cry of the dreaded Fedayeen Saddam troops. It is said that no one who hears this fearsome battle cry ever lives to describe it. Using state-of-the-art electromagnetic audio imprinting techniques, I was able make this exclusive recording of the Fedayeen battle cry during live combat. Let’s listen:

audblog audio post, click to listen

Scary stuff, yes, but isn’t freedom worth it? This unique recording will enable our troops to distinguish the nefarious Fedayeen from other Iraqis, saving countless Iraqi and American lives. Mission accomplished. By the way, this information is highly classified–if you tell anyone about this, I will deny it.

I’m off to meet the Navy SEAL extraction team who will escort me to CENTCOM for a debriefing. If you don’t hear from me for several days, assume the worst.

***** END SECURE TRANSMISSION *****

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.

— G. Gordon Liddy

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

— George Bernard Shaw

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

— Douglas Casey (1992)

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

— P.J. O’Rourke

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

— Frederic Bastiat

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:
If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

— Ronald Reagan (1986)

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the acts.

— Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.

— P.J. O’Rourke

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.

— Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.

— Mark Twain (1866)

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.
But I repeat myself.

— Mark Twain

Talk is cheap-except when Congress does it.
The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.

— Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.

–Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.

— Mark Twain

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

–Winston Churchill

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.

— Edward Langle

*** EXCLUSIVE! MUST CREDIT SAMURAI APPLIANCE REPAIR MAN. ***

Samurai Appliance Repair Man is live on-location here in downtown Baghdad, Iraq, doing an exclusive interview with Iraq’s Maximum Leader, Saddam Hussein. As part of the condition for granting the interview, I have promised not to reveal our location here in the Presidential Suite of the Ali Baba Hotel on Sadoun Street.

Samurai: Good morning, Mr. Hussein. Many people in the western world are wondering if you are alive. Are you, in fact, alive?

Saddam: I am wondering if you would scream like a little girl if you were fed into my human shredder feet first. God is great.

Samurai: That raises an interesting question, Maximum Leader: what brand of women’s undergarments do you prefer to wear: Victoria’s Secret or Land’s End?

Saddam: While I enjoy the Victoria’s Secret garments for their titillating and naughty revelations, I find that the Land’s End brand is more accommodating of my full figure and is more amenable to extended wear. Praise Allah.

Samurai: Excellent choice, El Presidentè! I see you have your TV tuned to Fox News so you’ve undoubtedly been watching the I-Hate-America parades in America with ghoulish satisfaction. How do these silly demonstrations affect your military policy?

Saddam: First, I would like to thank the Socialist Workers Party and the courageous intelligence officers of Iraq and North Korea who have worked tirelessly to organize these massive displays of Ameedican cowardice. These I-Hate-Ameedica parades, as you say, have boosted the moral of Iraq’s glorious army and have greatly encouraged us to continue resisting the Great Satan until they withdraw their armies of mercenaries leaving Iraq a free and sovereign nation once more. Allah be praised.

Samurai: How are your hemorrhoids doing?

Saddam: They burn like the fires of Hell where I will send all the Ameedican infidels. Do you have any Preparation H?

Samurai: Here, this try this Capzasin HP. I hear it works wonders on hemorrhoids.

Saddam: Very good. Now go, and let me apply this in dignity.

Samurai: Thank you for your time, El Presidentè.

Outside the Ali Baba Hotel, the screams of Iraq’s Maximum Leader trilled like a little girl throughout the streets of Baghdad. I disappeared through a crowd of astonished Iraqis to meet the Navy SEAL extraction team who will take me to CENTCOM for a de-briefing. Mission accomplished.

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence�it is a
force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a
fearful master; never for a moment should it be left
to irresponsible action.

— attributed to George Washington (possibly
apocryphal but doesn’t matter, it’s still a good
quote)

Government, in its last analysis, is organized
force.

— Woodrow Wilson

Government, even in its best state, is but a
necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable
one. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost
innocence…

— Thomas Paine, Common Sense, (1776), Chap. 1.

Fox News just showed another "I Hate America" parade in some arm-pit American city. You know the ones: all those pious souls supposedly protesting the war in Iraq. Earlier, I saw a bunch of talking heads condemning the protestors and talking about how great the war is going. But did you know that all this is just a good, old-fashioned family feud? Yep, both sides are just two different brands of liberals: neo-conservatives (neo-cons) and socialists.

Neo-cons parade under the party label of Republican and are advocates of global Big Brother. They believe it’s America’s duty to play globocop and are the new-found buddies of the military-industrial complex. Socialists, parading under the party label of Democrat, are the same old bed-wetting liberals who don’t like or understand the military but believe that the money you earn belongs to the government (which I’ll call “gubmint” because it’s more fun) to use on all sorts of bizarre social programs. Both want Big Gubmint to implement their agendas. They both agree that gubmint force is a good thing, but they disagree on how best to apply that force. Their disagreements are not ideological but tactical. As much as they bicker and argue with each other, they are actually two sides of the same coin–the gubmint’s coin.

There is another coin to choose and that is the coin of Liberty or self-gubmint (whoa! what a concept!). Let me compare and contrast the fundamentally divergent views of gubmint between the neo-con and socialist advocates of Big Gubmint on the one hand, to the Samurai’s enlightened view of self-gubmint.

Since the Samurai is omniscient (and he knows it), he sees the essential paradox of gubmint as a voracious consumer of the very liberties it is meant to secure. Gubmint is fundamentally evil but necessary because of our brutish nature. The necessity of gubmint is just another sign that we live in a broken world, it’s “the badge of lost innocence.” Nevertheless, gubmint is a beast that must be continually hamstrung.

Neo-cons (Republicans) see gubmint as fundamentally good, provided it does the things they want it to, like beating up other gubmints that they view as bad. This satisfies their sense of moral outrage and makes them feel good. Ideologically, they are kissing cousins with socialists (Democrats) who also see gubmint as fundamentally good, provided it does nice liberal things like steal from "the rich" and give to "the poor." This satisfies their sense of moral outrage (which they call "social justice") and makes socialists feel good.

In summary:

The Samurai: Gubmint bad

Neo-cons and socialists: Gubmint good

So, in the enlightened view of the Samurai, fighting a war against a particular gubmint so that a different gubmint can be installed is just the same old treadmill. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. If it’s not one war, it’s another. There’s no end to the number of reasons, all very high and mighty sounding, that gubmints can conjure up to justify going to war. Gubmints fight wars ’cause that’s what gubmints do and that’s what they’ve always done. The Samurai knows better than to get sucked into their crap…and now you do, too.

Now that you’ve been enlightened on the ways of Liberty, share the light: go ye forth and make disciples of all nations. And stop being a butt-boy for the gubmint.

Live Free or Die!