Re: If Kerry is elected...

From: Mark Fergerson (nunya_at_biz.ness)
Date: 10/19/04 

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 09:55:06 -0700

Rich Grise wrote:

> On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 00:35:41 -0700, Mark Fergerson wrote:

>> Rich Grise wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> When I'm elected president, I will:
>>>
>>> 1. Stand down all US military forces worldwide.
>>> 2. Immediately cease treasury disbursements for
military hardware.
>>> 3. Stop military recruitment.

>> Three extremely bad ideas in a row. Now, if you'd said
"Pare all military forces and equipage down to what's
absolutely necessary to repel any currently possible
attacking forces coming within twenty miles of U.S.
coastlines (while funding research into countering what
future attackers might use) and integrate them with the
Border Patrol" I'd be happy.

> OK. You're my Secretary of Defense.

   Fine. Do I get to put a CIWS on the front of my house for
drive-by control?

>> Unilateral disarmament doesn't make you "peaceful", it
makes you a "corpse".

> By whose hand, today? And which corpse? Who's going to
start trying to kill 250,000,000 Americans? And how long
would they
> get away with it, even if we didn't have soldiers stationed
> in Afghanistan?

   By anybody with an axe to grind, or delusions of world
conquest. You asked "how long would they get away with it?".
As long as they wanted to, since your first three points
leave no _defensive_ capabilities at all.

>>> 4. Continue to pay servicemen's paychecks, and
retirees' pensions -
>>> the pensions until they die, the servicemen until the
end of their
>>> term. Then turn them loose.

>> You better fund V.A. hospitals too.

> OK - I think I'll let you take care of that one too.

   I'll gladly defer to the nurse pushing for recognition of
the soldiers who suffered weird symptoms after Desert Storm.
Can't recall her name.

>>> 6. Fire the IRS, and Abolish the income tax.

>> Better set up a .5% Federal sales tax to pay for
what's left after the above.

> Originally, all the cost of government was supposed to be
covered by
> Customs. Imagine my surprise when I learned that! Today,
of course,
> their mission has been all perverted and twisted.

   That won't work these days because we do so little
exporting of manufactured stuff, and I don't think _fair_
import taxes would support much.

>>> 7. Freeze federal wages and hiring, maybe even start
cutting deadwood.

>> Don't forget to limit all Federal bureaucrats' terms of
>> employment to say ten years. No more of this "for life"
crap.

> Well, I think that'd be taken care of the fact that a
Senator's or Congressman's only pay would be by donations
from constituents. It's
> an all-volunteer government, you know. :-)

   Not them, I mean all the paper-pushers that never get
their faces on TV, but do all the "heavy lifting" in
government and are just as subject to being suborned by
special interests.

>> 9. Eliminate local funding of school districts; since
they have to
>> conform with Federal guidelines, support all of them
equally from
>> Federal funds. Replace the Department of Education with one
>> ninety-year-old schoomarm.

> No, no, no! Get rid of "federal guidelines" that
interfere with local
> issues! Lording it over people, telling them how they
should/must run
> their lives, is the entire cause of all the problems
there have ever
> been!

   Competence in English, math, and other fundamentals are
not local issues. Would you prefer that schools in L.A.
teach Ebonics instead of Standard English? The country's
fragmented enough as it is.

> No government has _any_ business telling people how to
school their
> children. Communities used to get together and build
schools for their own kids, and parents saw to it that the
kids learned stuff.

   I don't give a *** what was adequate for farmers who
didn't need any education beyond "See Spot *** Jane". This
is an enormously more complicated world.

> These days, kids are just a prop for some bimbo to
swindle a meal
> ticket out of some rich sucker, and are shuttled off as
soon as
> possible to the consumer factories. Big Brother likes it when
> everybody marches in lockstep.

   *** Big Bro _and_ Littler Bros. I'm talking about giving
kids the tools to make up their own damn minds. That's
simply impossible in a locally-funded school in Podunk
Arkansas because the local asholes will want to keep them
stupid enough to work in Bubba's coal mine.

>> 10. Open all ex-Federal lands to homesteading.

> Yeah - hey, wanna do Department of the Interior too? :-)

   Gee, will my Defense job leave enough free time? Oh,
wait; sure, as I'm the laziest *** I know.

>> 11. Keep the National Parks system intact, supported by
user fees. All
>> users must enter _and_ leave ***-naked.

> I LOVE it! You're definitely hired!

   Well, we wanna keep the environmental damage down...

> Also Minister of Culture. :-)

   I'll defer to George Carlin for that post.

   Mark L. Fergerson