The US Empire: A Tragic Comedy in Three Acts
by Bill Bonner
LewRockwell.com
What a delight it is to have an empire!
Do the Swiss get to send out drones to kill people they don’t know in countries they’ve never been? No! The poor yodelers go around with long faces and visit their shrinks. Americans have troops in 170 countries. Where are the Swiss? Only in Switzerland and the Vatican. Alas, they will never know the joys of nation building and people murdering.
We hear that Ron Paul was booed in the Republican presidential debates. Why? He suggested that we get out of the empire business, bring the troops home and become a civilized nation again. What a party pooper…a wet blanket…a killjoy!
An empire is so much more entertaining. We already have three wars going on…at last count…and quasi-wars in several other places.
Having an empire is like having a football team that plays for mortal stakes. It’s fun to watch…at least when your team is winning. And now, Team USA is kicking butts all over the planet. That’s why at football games, for example, (or so we’ve heard) images of the football team are sometimes mixed with images of US combat troops. The flag flies. The lumpen salute. They don’t want to think about it; they just want the homeland team to win!
And we have so much to look forward to. At least, we moral historians and ironic economists do. Gone is habeus corpus…forgotten is the presumption of innocence…into the wastebasket has been thrown the spirit of liberty. All that guff is in the past. In their place are hit squads and precision guided assassins. Now, the killer drones are only used abroad. But as the empire matures it is only a matter of time before they are used on more dangerous enemies – those at home! Yes, dear reader, if you can kill US citizens overseas, without any charges filed, let alone proved, you can certainly kill them where they might do the most damage – in the homeland. It is just a matter of time before the drones fly in Los Angeles and Baltimore, so watch out, Ron Paul.
The Rest…HERE
