President Grover Norquist today defended his administration after the city of Jackson, Mississippi, was destroyed by a nuclear bomb. The 10 Kiloton device, probably secreted by terrorists in a truck, exploded yesterday in the center of the city. At least 100,000 people have been confirmed dead.
"The fact is that the Federal Government, for the past 4 years, has ceded its responsibility for national defense to the states. This has been covered by The Thirty-First amendment."
Norquist has blamed the state of Mississippi for the attack.
"They were responsible for their own security. It is not the fault of the Federal government that they were unable to keep up with their defense insurance bills."
Halliburton, America's largest national defense service provider, has also defended the lack of military resources that were present in the state at the time of the attack. Phillip Moore, the vice president of the company, who is also the Senator for North Dakota (R), was interviewed last night in relation to Halliburton's defense role.
"You have to understand that Mississippi had the lowest level of defense insurance cover of any State in the US" he said "In fact, at the time of the attack, they were behind in their monthly payments which, as a result, led to a severe downgrading of their cover."
Halliburton, like other national defense service providers, charge individuals in each state a monthly fee to cover such basic defense needs as recruitment, training, weapons and ammunition purchases, as well as research and development into new technologies. Mississippi, the poorest state in the US, had the lowest per capita defense insurance payments as well. The state has also suffered a year-long recession, pushing unemployment up from 7% to 12% in that time, thus making defense insurance payments harder for individuals to manage.
President Norquist placed the blame firmly upon the people of Mississippi for the attack.
"Was it the Federal Government's fault that the state of Mississippi was in recession last year? Was it the Federal Government's fault that the people of Mississippi were unable to look after themselves and forgo their defense insurance payments? Of course not! If Mississippians had simply got off the streets and got themselves a job, then they would have enough money to pay Halliburton the amount of money needed and have adequate defense cover"
Despite the tragedy, many American states are actively preventing charity contributions to the state. Richard Thomas, CEO of Laserdyne military technologies corporation, who is also the Governor of Ohio, has openly criticised these charities.
"I am not against charitable giving at all. But at some point we have to stop giving people charity when it is obvious that they won't get off the sidewalk and do something about their lives! Mississippi is fully at fault for not being able to pay the bills that other American citizens pay."
Some leaders, particularly from the left-wing of politics, have argued that the Thirty-First Amendment be repealed and that defense again become the responsibility of the Federal Government. President Norquist scoffed at this suggestion.
"In order to effectively repeal Amendment XXXI, we would also have to repeal Amendment XXX, which eliminated any right the Federal Government had to levy taxes upon American citizens and businesses. If national Defense is given back to the Federal Government, we would have to begin taxing Americans again. I'm sorry but this attack on Mississippi is not some God-given sign to re-shackle the American people in the chains of taxation."
"Taxation is evil. It is immoral. And the Federal Government has proved since 1776 that it was totally incapable of running itself without having to abuse its citizenry with the sin of taxation. America was freed when Amendment XXX passed 5 years ago. I'm not about to put America back into fiscal slavery just because some two-bit city in a skid-row state can't pay their bills."
Foreign nations, most notably the People's Democratic Republic of Vermont, have offered generous assistance to the people of Mississippi. Because of Federal rules prohibiting foreign charitable donations, Vermont has opened its borders to anyone from the state who wishes to migrate.
"Anyone from Mississippi can freely and willingly come and become a citizen of Vermont." said President Elizabeth Smith "They will receive universal health care, free school and college education for their children, a roof over their heads, food to eat, and an opportunity to forge a living in the People's State of Vermont"
John Hamilton, president of Americans for Local Defense, has argued strongly for the repeal of Amendment XXXI - but is also pursuing an amendment that would hand the responsibility to local counties.
"If we repealed Amendment XXI and gave it back to the Federal government, and if we didn't begin to re-tax again, then defense insurance cover would be paid for by everyone equally around America."
"I'm sorry, but I pay my insurance money to cover my home and my people. I don't want my money to defend skid-row states like Mississippi and Alabama and Nebraska - I want my money to defend me! This is a user-pays system! It also creates a monopoly since we can only pick one defense insurance provider to cover the whole country. if we did that then we'd be back in the bad old days of having a Defense Department and a National standing army. Do we really want to return to the stone age? We might as well become Communists!"
"National defense should be the responsibility of local counties, with insurance cover changing from county to county. Rich counties get top cover, poor counties get poor cover. That's the normal activity of the marketplace. It would also free up the market for national defense insurance providers, thus making the industry more efficient and better at protecting us."
President Norquist said that his cabinet was considering such an idea.
"Moving national defense into the hands of local counties is a very interesting idea that my cabinet will be considering over the next 6 months. I will also discuss this possibility at the next Halliburton board meeting - I think the CEO (former President George W. Bush) might back the idea."
From the Department of Attempted Humour
© 2005 Neil McKenzie Cameron, http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/
Frequenty Asked Questions about the Author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
No comments:
Post a Comment