you a naval base and make your Roto-Rooter man an admiral of the fleet. There’ll be farm subsidies for every geranium you’ve got in a pot, defense contracts for Junior’s spitballs, and free daycare for Sister’s dolls. You’ll get unemployment for the 16 hours a day when you’re not at your job, full disability benefits if you have to get up in the night to take a leak, and Social Security checks will come in the mail not just when you retire at 65 but when you retire each night to bed. Taxes? Hell, I’ll have the government go around every week putting money back in your paycheck, and I’ll make the IRS hire chimpanzees from the zoo to audit your tax returns. Vote for me, folks, and you’ll be farting through silk.” Government is also boring because in a democracy government is a matter of majority rule. Now, majority rule is a precious, sacred thing worth dying for. But – like other precious, sacred things, such as the home and family – it’s not only worth dying for, it can make you wish you were dead. Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza. Every pair of pants, even those in a Brooks Brothers suit, would be stone-washed denim. Celebrity diet and exercise books would be the only things on the shelves at the library. And – since women are a majority of the population – we’d all be married to Mel Gibson. [Not anymore! What a bum he turned out to be! Currently, we’d all be remarried to Channing Tatum.] Furthermore, government is boring because what’s in it for us? Sure, if we own an aerospace
contracting company or a 5,000-acre sugar- beet farm we can soak Uncle Sucker for millions. But most of us failed to plan ahead and buy McDonnell Douglas. And now the only thing we can get out of government is government benefits – measly VA checks and Medicare. We won’t get far on the French Riviera on this kind of chump change. Besides the French look at us funny when we try to buy pate de foie gras and Chateau Margaux ‘61 with American food stamps. Government is so tedious that sometimes you wonder if the government is being boring on purpose. Maybe it’s trying to put us to sleep so we won’t notice what it’s doing. [One thing that can be said for President Trump, he doesn’t put us to sleep. He keeps us up at night...] Every aspect of our existence is affected by government, so naturally we want to keep an eye on the thing. Yet whenever we regular citizens try to read a book on government or watch one of those TV public-affairs programs about government, we feel like high school students who’ve fallen a semester behind in our algebra class. Then we grow drowsy and torpid. This could be intentional. Our government could be attempting to establish a Dictatorship of Boredom. The last person left awake gets to spend all the tax money. Boredom isn’t the only problem. American
lack of interest in government is well developed, but American ignorance of government is perfect.
American Consequences | 9
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