Like Scott Walker, George Bush Knew the Threat from Canada Needed a Response

GOP presidential candidate Scott Walker thinks building a wall along the Canadian border is a “legitimate concern.” I couldn’t agree more. Canadians aren’t Americans, ergo, they are inferior humans that need to be kept at a reasonable distance. But Walker’s fence idea isn’t the first time a politician has grasped the very real threat from our neighbors to the north. Few now remember that in 2007, then President George Bush raised the alarm about the potential for aggression from crazed Canadians and responded accordingly. Here is a news article from that period highlighting the courage and fortitude of our former Commander and Chief. 

WASHINGTON D.C. - Just days after announcing his intention to station National Guard troops along the U.S. border with Mexico, President Bush made an unexpected statement today concerning the Canadian border.

"It is true that our most immediate national security need is to secure our southern border. However, we cannot ignore the risks posed by a three thousand mile-long, largely unsecured border to our north. While our attention is diverted to the southern states, thousands of Al-Qaeda terrorists could be quietly slipping into America disguised in moose or squirrel costumes, forming sleeper cells in unsuspecting towns like International Falls or Fargo. The threat is real, and must be met."

Today, I am calling up our brave young Americans in Boy Scout, Girl Scout and Cub Scout troops all along the northern tier of states, from Washington to Maine. Scout units will be stationed along the Canadian border at designated intervals for four-week rotations. The Scouts will be issued BB guns, slingshots and Swiss Army Knives with which they will secure our borders and allow Americans to sleep easy in their beds."

Some of you may ask, 'Is sending a nine-year old child out into the Northern woods with little more than Ritalin, a dull knife and a backpack full of Snickers bars a good idea?'" I say, give our children more credit. Sure they'll miss their TVs and their mommies, but they know what it means to wear a uniform and that sacrifices are necessary in the war on terror. "

The first Scout units will be in position shortly after the end of school in June. Scout Masters will receive field promotions to full colonel and receive all respective benefits. All scouts will be given photocopies of known Al-Qaeda operatives, and they will be issued shoot-to-kill or really-really-hurt-bad orders."

My fellow Americans, I know what it means to serve one's country in uniform and the sacrifices that are required. I spent countless days away from home and family in strange nightclubs and at parties where I didn't know a soul. It's true. But America's young people today understand that freedom isn't free, and that everyone must do their part in the war on terror. All I can say is God bless them, and God bless you."

The Republican War on Education

To follow up on a blog I wrote a few days ago about the Right’s antipathy toward education, new examples have come to light that signal we really are in an all out war over the minds of our children. Not to be out-cut by fellow wingnut and potential presidential candidate Scott (Crazy Eyes) Walker, Republican Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has proposed a bill that will cut higher education in the state by $387 million.

Advanced Placement history courses are being attacked by Tea Partiers and Christian fundamentalists around the country for being overly negative and not teaching American Exceptionalism. It’s especially bad in Oklahoma where Republican Rep. Dan Fisher has introduced House Bill 1380 that would give the state sole control of curriculum and assessment. Dan thinks the current AP history course spends too much time pointing out what’s bad about America.

People like Dan who serve in state legislatures and on local school boards across this country want to replace education with indoctrination, facts with flights of fancy. They want to dumb down our children to the point where they are unable to think critically and will live lives of unquestioning loyalty to Jesus and the Homeland.

How can America be called exceptional if its population lacks the ability to think and reason? If the Walkers and the Rauner’s and the morons in Oklahoma are successful, we will fall further and further behind the rest of the developed countries in education, and our one-time position as a world technological leader will be only a distant memory.

Most maddening about all of this is the hard cold fact that less educated citizens are attracted to conservative politicians and principals. Republican leaders know this and, especially at the state level, are doing their damndest to create a new generation of loyal party members.

Sigh...

The most discouraging aspect of Scott Walker’s victory in the Wisconsin recall election is the message it sends to other conservative candidates that the voting public is truly as clueless and gullible as they had hoped, and that with huge amounts of money, you can count on swaying enough people to vote against their best interests.

Look at those eyes. Are those the eyes of a sane man?