From Behind Enemy Lines

From Behind Enemy Lines
Friday, March 1, 2013
by Burt Prelutsky

Because I am a conservative living in California, I often find myself thinking that, like those members of the French underground in World War II movies, I should be transmitting my dispatches by way of a shortwave radio.

How crazy is California, you ask? Well, for openers, the voters back in November, voted to raise the state income taxes. And why did they do that, you ask? Because Governor Jerry Brown told them it was a good idea. That’s how crazy California is. But there’s more.

Now it’s been discovered that the world’s largest deposit of shale oil lies beneath our feet. Not only could it provide jobs for tens of thousands of unemployed people, but it might even lower our gas prices 50 or 60 cents-a-gallon, finally putting us in range of the national average. But for all the good that oil is likely to do us, it might as well be lying beneath the feet of Martians. That’s because nearly every wealthy Democrat in California is a devout environmentalist.

All those rich dipsticks, like Rob Reiner, George Clooney, Ted Danson and Barbra Streisand, who spend millions electing the likes of Barack Obama, Henry Waxman, Brad Sherman and Governor Moonbeam, are more concerned with being invited to Sierra Club galas than they are with the state’s double digit unemployment rate. It may not be easy being green if you’re a Muppet, but you’ve got it made if you’re a greenie in California.

In a saner world, it’s not insects that would need to be on lists of endangered species. Instead, it would be two-legged creatures like Jim Carrey. The sometime actor/fulltime buffoon recently declared that “Anyone who ran out after Newtown to get a gun has nothing in his body or his soul worth protecting.” One has to suspect that in the sequel to Dumb and Dumber, Carrey will play both roles. In Hollywood, that’s called typecasting.

How is it that when Obama releases photos of himself playing basketball at the White House, it’s okay, but if a conservative mentions Obama and basketball in the same sentence, he can count on Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow labeling him a racist?

Speaking of which, how is it that blacks claim to feel insulted if they are in any way connected to fried chicken and watermelon, two very tasty items, but, by and large, they don’t seem to be even slightly embarrassed by a 71% illegitimacy rate, a flourishing drug culture and more young men going to jail than to college. If they were serious grown-ups, instead of being a pair of celebrity suck-ups, wouldn’t we expect Barack and Michelle, the First Black Couple, to address those problems instead of constantly lecturing white, law-abiding, people about guns and cookies?

The latest in a litany of good reasons why conservatives should home-school their children was the suspension of a seven-year-old from the second grade. It seems during recess he fantasized a game in which evil monsters were hiding in a box. His solution to saving the world was to toss a fantasy hand grenade and blow them up. The school administrators, who no doubt fantasize that they are sane, wasted no time dealing with this menace.

For the boy, it was no doubt a learning experience. One thing he learned was that all the monsters don’t hide in boxes; often, they can be found lurking in the principal’s office. The other thing he learned is that fantasy hand grenades are good, but real ones are more effective.

On the other hand, if the kid was anything like me, he knew exactly what he was doing. If I were attending public school these days and I found out how easily one could be sent home, I would be spraying the schoolyard with an imaginary tommy gun.

I don’t really believe that little kids pointing their fingers and going “Bang bang” are really a cause for great concern. I do think that adults lying about disabilities in order to either retire early or increase their pension benefits is every bit as disgusting as a president blowing millions of dollars on vacations for himself and his family when so many Americans can’t pay their bills, thanks mainly to his left-wing agenda.

At present, there are 8,830,026 Americans collecting disability checks. That is a record number. In fact, a new record has been set every month going back to January, 1997. That month, the number went from 4,385,623 to 4,385,374, a dip of 249. Does anyone actually believe that we have doubled the number of disabled Americans over the past 16 years? Even with all those nanny state safety measures in place? Disability fraud is definitely a growth industry. Along with gun manufacturing and gun sales, it’s just about the only one we have.

Finally, in Colorado, some very bright legislators are trying to change things so that the burden of proof will be on defense attorneys to prove their clients are sane rather than on prosecutors to prove they’re loons.

Although it is a step in the right direction, the solution should be to throw out the plea of guilty by reason of insanity. Evil is evil. It is not a state of mind, but a state of soul. The lame argument that the insane can’t assist counsel in their own defense falls on my deaf ears. As I see it, if the accused didn’t need a bunch of shysters to help him molest, rob, rape or murder, I don’t see any compelling reason why these law school grads need his help to con a jury.
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.