by Becky Akers Recently by Becky Akers: The Torturer vs. Joan of Arc
It’s hot and sticky, and war criminal George W. Bush still struts free, lying to the mainstream media’s useful idiots with his usual impunity. Nevertheless, Your Intrepid Reporter has been doing a happy dance the last week. Working up a sweat in this wretched weather, it’s true, but hey, how else to express one’s delight at the cornucopia of good news? For starters, even if DC’s sociopaths and Keynesians don’t shut themselves down on Tuesday, one of their most dictatorial and inept agencies has already "partial[ly]" closed. "[A]fter lawmakers failed to reach a last-minute agreement on a stopgap funding measure for … the FAA [, it] will be unable to collect federal taxes on airline tickets." Alas, it is thereby "losing" $30 million daily (as if our money ever belonged to it in the first place) and "must furlough 4,000 federal workers [sic for ‘leeches’] … without pay[!!!!!!!!]." What’d I tell you? Happy dance! Of course, temporarily ridding us of 4000 parasites is barely a beginning: the monstrous, murderous FAA with its "requested" budget of $9.8 billion made "work" for 47,456 sponges in FY10. And their incompetence, irresponsibility, and sheer cussedness are legendary: recall that they loudly and frequently asserted their exclusive authority to safeguard aviation’s passengers – until their hidebound orders to cooperate with hijackers killed almost 3000 people one tragic morning ten years ago. And so Congress created a second but equally incompetent, irresponsible, and utterly cussed agency to "protect" passengers via sexual assault: the Transportation Security Administration. Nor did 9/11 put the fear of God into the FAA. Indeed, while the corporate media wrung its hands over the short-term sacking of 4000 "non-essential" personnel, the FAA kindly furnished us with yet another example of its ineptitude: "The Transportation Security Administration cannot determine the real identity of thousands of the people to whom the Federal Aviation Administration has issued licenses as pilots and aircraft mechanics, but has located an additional 27 who should not have held them because of terrorist connections, according to an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security." Anyone who understands security will tell you that proving someone’s identity is pretty much irrelevant to preventing crime. But if you believe in government, the tooth fairy, and bureaucrats’ abilities to protect us, you’d likely lose some sleep over the FAA’s failure here. Naturally, you won’t demand the agency’s abolition … but gosh, don’t you wish you were smart enough that you could?
My blissful gyrations at the FAA’s cutbacks left me nigh dizzy. Then I stumbled across another joyous revelation: a state representative in Georgia "introduced House Bill 875 in November 2009. The first two sentences of that proposed legislation, better known as the ‘Right to Travel Act,’ summarize what the bill is about: ‘Free people have a common law and constitutional right to travel on the roads and highways that are provided by their government for that purpose. Licensing of drivers cannot be required of free people because taking on the restrictions of a license requires the surrender of an inalienable right.’" Whoa! Incredibly, it gets better: "other groups around the country are pushing to introduce similar bills to their state legislatures…," according to the National Motorists Association, Yeehaw! Imagine life without the tyranny of driver’s licenses and all the costs, hassles and silly demands for ID concomitant with them! Plus, one of Leviathan’s most cherished and perpetual schemes, that of turning licenses into a national ID, would immediately crash and burn. Unfortunately, licenses are one of the chains the slaves most closely clutch: virtually everyone swallows the State’s baloney that its permits "protect" us rather than enrich itself (if you don’t believe me, check out the readers’ comments here, or simply announce at your next barbeque that we should eliminate licensing – and then take cover). Apparently these wingnuts have never driven in New York City, Boston or Florida, nor lost anyone to the horrific carnage of government-licensed drivers on government-managed roads. We turn for our final throes of exultation to an unexpected source: the WaPo, Leviathan’s indefatigable cheerleader and partner in crime. You need read no further than this headline to begin grinning: "Federal employees are worried, angry about potential government default." Let’s hope they suffer as many nightmares over their gravy train’s possible derailment as their golden geese suffer under an audit from the IRS. Can you stand further glee? Here are the column’s opening sentences: "Angry. Disappointed. Worried. Terrified. Furious. Afraid. Disgusted. These are among the words we can print that federal employees used when we asked them to describe their feelings about a potential government default."
Be sure you sample the readers’ comments on this article: they’ll restore your faith in our fellow serfs. But first savor every delicious irony in the "federal employees’" responses to the WaPo’s questions: "As a federal employee," the newspaper requests, "describe how you feel about the possibility of a default." Which elicited this gem from "Army" in "Alexandria": "Angry that they see federal employees as cash cows." Yeah, turnabout is never fair play, is it, Army? Only civilians should be cash cows. After all, somebody’s got to pay for those bennies you and your buddies exploit while slaughtering villagers. Then there’s this from "Homeland Security, Flint, Mich": "Worried about the bills and if I will be able to support myself and my family." Yep, I’m grinning, too, more broadly than any Cheshire cat.
August 2, 2011 Becky Akers [send her mail] writes primarily about the American Revolution. Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
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