Protzmann is a first-year philosophy major and can be contacted at [email protected]
Extending the Bush tax cuts on income for America’s highest earners cost the government $36 billion in potential revenue this year. The massive budget battle that has dramatically unfolded over the last few weeks finally ended in the 11th hour with the federal government cutting $38.5 billion in government services.
As the spokesperson for the government, it is my duty to say congratulations! After all the sweat, blood and tears, the government of the people, by the people and for the people has finally found a way to afford to have more money lining the pockets of rich people.
It was a difficult fight, to be sure, and temporary sacrifices had to be made. There were many evil, socialistic forces at work trying to stop it. Civil workers trying to spread information about sexually transmitted diseases and contraception had the gall to argue that public health was more important than rich people’s money. The budget deal we will pass, unfortunately, did not end up defunding these sexual deviants, but rest assured that, in the name of liberty and economic sanity, we will eventually unleash an all-out assault on birth control pills and women’s cancer screenings.
And who could forget National Public Radio, the most blatant communist front in America’s history. A freely available source of unbiased news, intellectually stimulating political discussion and classical music? Blasphemy! To the Star Chamber with them!
Oh, shoot. How could we forget that our policies have evolved to be more family-friendly, family-values oriented? We don’t send heretics and blasphemers to the Star Chamber anymore. We send them to the front of the line to appear in our daily Two-Minute Hate videos on Fox News.
And who could forget that those rascals at NPR are to blame for our fiscal woes. On top of protecting Americans from information, we could resolve the fiscal crisis by defunding them. After all, almost 1 percent of NPR’s budget comes from federal tax revenues. If we were to cut NPR, the deficit would disappear overnight and we could revive the economy to unprecedented levels.
We have to admit, however, that we were not able to bring justice to those leftist subverters in the latest budget battle. Fear not! We will fight for the rights of families to ensure that their children only hear the properly censored information that we want them to hear. Virgin ears should not be tainted with facts.
This is America, people. We don’t use logic. Logic is for ivory tower, pinko-commie professors with their books and their knowledge. America was founded by God and guts, not secularists and intellectuals. Which is why, after being brought into office to improve the economy and expand the job market, we have made sure that every federal building has “In God We Trust” emblazoned on each façade, because that is what this country really needs to save the economy.
After all, we argued all over the campaign trail that government was broken and is incapable of doing anything at all. This is why our most sensitive voodoo-economists and clerics are communing with God to ask for help in restoring the economy. Why try and actually solve problems with facts and reason when we can just telepathically ask the grand sky-wizard to do it for us?
It’s not like investing in education would help us. After all, knowledge is power. And power is something we don’t want the people to have. This is a republic. In a republic, only the most elite have the right to make decisions. People who think government should be structured differently are an affront to the Founding Fathers. Because, you know, the opinions of long dead aristocrats and slaveholders are truly relevant to how we operate today.
All in all, it’s been a good year for us in power. There used to be an America where the owners of the means of production were actually allowed to literally own their property, labor and all. There used to be an America where scientists were sent before the courts to answer for their crimes against ignorance. There used to be an America where the only book we took the time to read was written by people claiming knowledge about the universe with a five-year old’s conception of science. There used to be an America where people we didn’t like, looked different from us or had funny sounding names weren’t allowed to live here. I remember those days. And I tell you now, every time I wake up droves of people lifted out of poverty and ignorance, I can only pine for those days again. Why fight for a better tomorrow when we can fight for a worse yesterday instead.
