Family Values

I had just left Burnie’s Bar and was making my way home when I ran into my neighbor Shirley Black tooling down the street in her electric senior scooter. Now, Shirley and I don’t get on too well-- she’s been and ardent conservative all her life and me a flaming progressive—so she tried to roll on past me with barely a nod. But, I’d been thinking about conservatism lately and it occurred to me to ask Shirley about it.

“Shirley, is George Bush a conservative?”

“Of course he is. Everyone knows that. That’s a stupid question,” she responded continuing to wheel down the street.

“The thing that made me ask is his position on family values,” I said running after her

“He’s strong on family values. He’s leading the fight against gay marriages.” Shirley said, still not stopping.

“I was thinking of the Iraq thing,” I called after her

That stopped her. “I don’t understand the connection. What do you mean.” She said turning to me a scowl on her face.

“It’s clear he values his own family, none of them are in Iraq, but does he value the families of all those men and women he’s sent to Iraq?” I said.

“He sure does,” Shirley answered. “That’s the war on terrorism he’s fighting. Get them before they get us.”

“Shirley, who’s them?”

“Al Qaeda of course.”

“But Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq when we invaded,”

“Who says?”

“Well at one point George Bush said there was no evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. I read that in the New York Times. Of course, he’s waffled on that since.”

“Max, I don’t like you. You’ve always got everything all wrong. You’re wrong here, too. It’s Kerry who’s the waffler not President Bush.”

“That’s something else I’ve been trying to understand. Why do you people continue to say that, Shirley?”

“The prime example is the way he voted for the war and then refused to fund it by voting in November 2003 against the $87 Billion dollars needed to equip the troops .” Shirley swung her senior scooter around to face me. I could see she was mad as hell. “Doesn’t he care if out troops under fire don’t have what they need to defend themselves?”

“Shirley, in 2003 before November Bush was given $431 Billion dollars to fight the war, the biggest allocation of defense money since the Viet Nam War. Why didn’t he use that to equip the troops? Furthermore, we both saw him on that aircraft carrier announcing the war was over. If the war was over why did he need more money? Considering this, I can understand why Senators Kerry and Edwards didn’t vote for the $87 Billion.”

Shirley turned black. I swore I saw smoke coming out of her ears. She spun her senior scooter around and floored it. I didn’t know a senior scooter could burn rubber. As she swung into her driveway I heard her call back, “Max Angst you’re a communist. Learn to love the United States.

Heck, I learned that a long time ago.

George, the Protector

George the Protector; by Max Angst

I was sitting in Burnie’s Bar when Teddy Dumbrowski came in. Teddy is one of those interesting people who have a shit load of opinions mostly gained from listening to talk radio. The news was on the TV when Teddy arrived and the reporter was saying how George Bush was viewed by many people as being stronger than John Kerry when it came to defending the country and keeping it safe.

"That’s right," said Teddy. "The way he moved into Afghanistan and Iraq showed
those towel heads not to mess with us."

"Tell me Ted," I responded "Just how did it breakdown? How many of the hijackers were Afghani and how many were Iraqi?"

"I think it was about fifty, fifty."

"That goes to show you can’t trust the Internet," I said. "I found this article that said 15 came from Saudi Arabia The remaining four came from Egypt the Inited Arab Emirates and Lebanon ."
"
That’s crazy. If non of the hijackers came from Afghanistan or Iraq why would President Bush invade those countries?" Teddy Responded.

"Yeah! That’s what I was wondering?"

"Anyhow, President Bush is better at defending this country because he’s a Christian." Teddy told me.

"John Kerry’s a Christian," I said.

"No, No, Kerry’s a Catholic." Ted answered

I thought the Catholics were the original Christians.

"Geez Max you don’t know your history. Back in the middle ages Martin Luther King threw the Catholics out of the Christian Church. It was called the Spanish Imposition or the Reparations or something."

"But how does that make Bush better at defending the country?"

He has a better program. He’s going to go over there and make all the ragheads Christians. Then they won’t bother us any more. He could call it a Crusade."

"You don’t think the Muslims would mind?"

"Heck no. it would be the best thing that ever happened to them. That way when they die they could go to heaven. Even better they could stop wearing those damn sheets and put on some decent clothes."

"Teddy, I believe the Muslims are going fight to hold on to what they have."

"Well if they do, then President Bush will nuke the whole damn bunch of them. It’s the Christian thing to do. After all if they don’t take the opportunity he offers them, they’re nothing but a bunch of hardheaded infidels."

"Yeah, and it’s our duty to wipe out the infidels."

"Right, Max, now you got it."

"Yeah, and so does Osama Bin Laden"