Let’s get this straight; the debt ceiling will be increased by August 2, 2011. The United States of America will not go into default. It will not lose its platinum credit rating. There will be no implosion of our federal government’s ability to wage war, tax or provide a bevy of entitlements. Events will continue as they always have, just like there will be a National Football League season and all 50 states will pass some dumbass law that will find the next Casey Anthony guilty of something.
It will be business as usual around here. You know why? Because no one in congress, read this loud and clear; NO ONE has the balls, the foresight or the principles to stand up for a fucking thing they believe in. Never have. Never will. It is an American tradition as old as the Continental Congress. Just ask poor John Adams, who stupidly tried to foment revolution including all 13 colonies while suggesting the abolishment of slavery, especially in the face of a Declaration of Independence boldly stating that the Supreme Being endowed all men as being created equal, penned eloquently, mind you, by a slave owner.
Yeah, we know how that worked out. Clearer heads prevailed. Clearer gutless heads, that is, and no one argued with it. Because of it, we’re here now. Because of it, I’m writing this instead of bent over a pint in a pub in Dublin or driving madly across the cliffs of Naples. I’m here, you’re here and we’re all here, because the Continental Congress did not stand by its true, core principles. It just passed the buck down the road, fully knowing that fateful decision would inevitably lead to Civil War. When? Soon, bubba, real soon.
So now the bold talk comes from the 112th congress about letting the nation fall into deadbeat status over a massive debt reducing bill sans tax increases in a myopic balance budget directive will all be for naught. Two weeks out, everyone looks like Patrick Henry. It’s like the big mouth before a fistfight. Tough talk always comes early. Let’s hear the talk when the fur flies. Shit, Eric Cantor appears to have gone rogue on the rest of his party, except for those freshmen congressmen, who were elected to slash the government and not put a scintilla of the burden on the American people.
Fucking right I’m rooting for Cantor. And if you were a true patriot, you’d do the same. Let the country go into default. Let the guns of Gettysburg roar. They have to roar eventually. Why not now? Why not let the stock market crash and the free market fend for itself against a torrent of shit this generation has not yet witnessed. Or let nothing happen, just as simpletons like Michele Bachmann claim. What do you expect from religious fanatics but yammering about faith over fact? These sunshine and rose yokels always think five minutes of research is anathema, and I applaud them for it. Stick to your guns, whatever guns they may be. I want to see for myself if God helps her out when the penniless ravaged rabble come crashing through her front doors demanding cash, food and guns.
Doom or victory would finally answer some questions about less government, wouldn’t it? If we survive, our children will live on streets paved with gold. Good for them. They are our future. Either that or they will be key pieces in trade if the bond futures disappear and the banks close up shop. A healthy middle class white baby will capture prime trade value in a post apocalyptic environment. I’ve already tagged my kid for eBay. Hell, Bachmann has something like 40 kids. That is tantamount to a millionaire in the new world order.
Calvin Coolidge’s corpse is laughing at us right now. Ayn Rand is coughing up several lungs. Wherever those lunatics are now, we salute their ideological rocks. They had them and were willing to see it through, consequences be damned. This congress, as in the case of every congress, has none of this pioneer spirit.
You know why the Right is not going to win the day and disallow us from seeing what pure, unadulterated conservative economic theorizing will unleash? Because the Left had a chance for true socialism last year with the massive Health Care law and instead cobbled together a barely coherent monstrosity that barely scratches the surface of anything resembling national health care, just as this space predicted for the entirety of that imbecilic debate.
For once, I’d like to be wrong about this. Lord knows I’m comfortable being wrong, or at the very least bent or wildly off the mark. But I have never been wrong about the overreaction or overreach of politicos. They always make me look like a genius—no easy task. Predicting the gutless nature of our legislators is better mojo than my three-team teaser run of 1991; my finest year in gambling. My only problem that year is that I had nothing to really put down, because if I’d been laying serious cash, I certainly wouldn’t be writing this now or doing anything that didn’t include getting lit on a beach in Mexico.
But I’m not on a beach and there will be no Republican stand and the debt ceiling will be raised and then the crying wolf set will move on to dissecting who’ll pay the most political capital for this latest breach of ethics; this bland, safe and boring compromise.
For the record, I say…bring it on!
James Campion is the Managing Editor of The Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of Deep Tank Jersey, Fear No Art, Trailing Jesus and Midnight For Cinderella.
