*** 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!

The Samurai is live on-location here in Bagdad, Kentucky, and I’m talking to Delmus MacDaniel.

Samurai: Delmus, we know this is a war against the regime of Saddam Hussein and not against the Iraqi people. Do you have anything you’d like to say to the people of Iraq and particularly the people of your near-namesake town of Baghdad, Iraq?

Delmus: Well, I think people are pretty much the same wherever you go. They just wanna get up in the morning, get ’em somethin’ to eat, go to work, come home, watch a little TV and go to bed without worryin’ about gettin’ blowed up.

And that about sums it up. Back to you, Laurie.

audblog audio post

Hey. How y’all doin’? You’ve probably had your eyeballs glued on Fox News watching the fireworks show in that sandbox over there in the middle east. Yeah, me too. Every now and then, I’ll change to another channel where they’re giving free publicity to the beautiful people protesting the war.

I also oppose this war. But not because of the empty and tired cliches being thrown about by the bed-wetting, hippie-wannabe crowd: America is bad, no blood for oil, American colonialism, blah blah blah. Anyone with a half a brain knows that’s a bunch of America-hating rhetoric sponsored by the Socialist Worker’s Party and their ilk.

I oppose this war because I don’t think we need to expend American blood and treasure on a middle eastern dirt patch. Free the people of Iraq? Who cares? Dictator-schmictator–let ’em have their own revolutionary war like everyone else. Why do we need to play Globocop?

I know, I know, Da Man tells me this war is about protecting America from terrorism. But I just don’t see how bombing Iraq makes us any safer from terrorism. If anti-terrorism is the real motive, then the most effective response is to get a grip on immigration and secure the borders. The INS and Border Patrol are jokes. The Mexican border is a border in name only and has well-travelled roads where all sorts of illegals, including terrorists, freely come and go. Would it be expensive to secure the long borders with Canada and Mexico? You bet! But you can also bet that it’d be a lot less expensive than lobbing 1,000+ Tomahawk missiles at $1.4 million each, deploying five carrier battle groups, and over 200,000 troops with all their hardware half way around the globe.

As I watch these “anti-war” demonstrations, the puke-ins, the ignorant cliches bantered about by the pseudo-intelligentsia, I just wonder: where were all these enlightened paragons of virtue when the Clintonistas bombed Kosovo? (Remember Kosovo?) Aren’t these just sad, lonely people with empty lives and empty heads clamoring for a “cause” to make them feel morally superior? So all these beautiful people come together to feel good for 15 minutes and bash America. Do you think they really care about war? Or do they really just care about how they feel? If they were truly anti-war activists, wouldn’t we have seen this same freak show during the bombing of Kosovo? Remember Kosovo.

But there is a bright spot to these “anti-war” protests. As the protestors continue their feel-good, ego-stroking theater, they suck away police resources that would otherwise be used to ensure their own safety from terrorist attacks and so increase the likelihood of an attack in the very place they are protesting. In fact, one of those “I Hate America” parades would make ideal cover for a terrorist attack. Ahh, such delicious irony if a terrorist were to blow himself up with a backpack nuke right in the midst of one of these protest crowds! Yes, the sword of Islam just may be their salvation. I need to stop for a moment, I’m tingling with excitement…

Ok, I’m back. I feel better now.

Anyway, the bombs are falling now and all the sign-waving in the world ain’t gonna stop it. Regardless of how we feel about the war, it’s time to be Americans and close ranks. Let us pray for a speedy end to the conflict and that our guys come home quickly and safely to their families. Amen.