Can't Help You, But Sure Can Hurt You

by Bob Wallace 

Even a stopped clock is occasionally right.  I am of course referring to Chief Wiggum of "The Simpsons," when he said, "I didn't say the government couldn't hurt you.  I said it couldn't help you."  

I have decided to elevate his saying to the status of a Natural Law, inherent in the universe and human nature, and unalterable no matter how many law books politicians and lawyers beat it with.  

Why did I decide this?  Because I recently saw two police officers X-ray a T-shirt and a newspaper.  This is what Dubya's Warren Terrism has come to: searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction in T-shirts and the Daily Birdcage Liner.  

The State has taken leave of reality, and now dwells in the Twilight Zone of total paranoia.  Every time anyone goes inside a State building, he becomes subject to a cluster-bomb-type search-attack.  

The T-shirt was in a package.  I swear--and as Dave Barry says, I am not making this up--I stood there and watched a police officer run the transparent package, containing one T-shirt, through an X-ray conveyor belt.  

What exactly can you hide in a folded up T-shirt?  I mean, really?  That's not a rhetorical question.  What can you hide in a T-shirt?  What would he have done if he had taken the T-shirt out of the package and found a picture of Osama bin Laden on the front of it?  Whipped out his sidearm and told all of us to lie on the floor with our hands on our heads?  Thank God he didn't have a machine gun!  He probably would have shot the place up like a drunken bandit!  

Could have been worse, though.  It could have been a picture of Ché Guevara on the T-shirt, although both cops might have scratched their heads and wondered why Jesus was wearing a beret.  

Then I saw them X-ray a newspaper.  This wasn't a rolled-up newspaper.  This was a loose one that the owner was obviously reading when he was told to put it on the conveyor belt.  What in the world can you hide in a newspaper?  

What next?  Bags of Cheesy Poofs? People's dentures?  Gotta watch out for those TNT-filled molars, you know!  

And you know what?  Neither cop looked at the screen.  They were just going through the motions.  They knew as well as anyone else no one was going to sneak a bomb into the Federal Reserve Bank at which they worked.  

Terrorists may not be the smartest people in the world, but even they would support the Fed in its quest to destroy the dollar and collapse the economy.  They wouldn't bomb one of the banks; they'd cheer every counterfeit dollar it created!  

I'm sure these two guys were paid pretty good money.  Of course.  They work for the Feds.  But what exactly happens to the human brain when the owner stands by a conveyor belt all day and X-rays packages?  

If a person's brain could jump out of his ear and run away from boredom, would it do it?  Or worse, does it just slowly fade away, like a watch battery running down?  Does it end up like one of those chickens you can hypnotize by it watching you draw a chalk line on the ground?  

Is every American considered a potential terrorist these days?  Did these guys expect Granny in a wheelchair to start whirling her oxygen bottles around like nunchuks?  What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?  Can't these guys tell the difference between an American and the terrorists who flew planes into the WTC and the Pentagon?  I’m sure can, and so can most Americans.  Apparently the government can't, though.  

This kind of stuff with T-shirts and newspapers isn't any kind of security at all.  It's all pretend.  It's all worthless.  

Is this what the nature of government really is?  Let's Play Pretend?  And ignore the serious stuff?  Let's X-ray T-shirts and newspapers, then, hey, look, folks, now we're safe!  No wonder the government never sees anything coming!  Sleepwalking bureaucrats never do!  

The Feds would be better off hiring monkeys for security.  They'd be cheaper, for one thing.  "Here, Ook-Ook, here's a banana.  Now throw Grandpa on the floor and do a full body cavity search."  

If the government was really honest about what it is, everyone working security for them would be wearing a Chief Wiggum mask.  Why?  Because the government isn't helping at all with the nonsense I saw.  They're only hurting.