the devil's bracelets

i've given it a lot of thought, and i've decided that beelzebub is running the country.

and get this: i'm not (necessarily) talking about george w. bush this time.

there are just too many evil things going on to dismiss them all as random occurrences. this scene from 'broadcast news' neatly describes my premise...

albert brooks: ...please don't take it wrong when I tell you that I believe that Tom, while a very nice guy, is the Devil.

holly hunter: This isn't friendship.

albert brooks: What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.

lowering our standards. slowly, implacably moving the line separating the acceptable from the unacceptable. this story, from npr, is exactly the kind of thing brooks was talking about.

The Department of Homeland Security is experimenting with a controversial new method to keep better track of immigrants who are applying to remain in the United States. It is requiring aliens in eight cities to wear electronic monitors 24 hours a day.

The ankle bracelets are the same monitors that some rapists and other convicted criminals have to wear on parole. But the government's pilot project is putting monitors on aliens who have never been accused of a crime.

So far, the Department of Homeland Security has put electronic monitors on more than 1,700 immigrants. Victor Cerda, director of Detention and Removal Operations at Homeland Security, says the anklets will help prevent tens of thousands of immigrants who are ordered to leave the country each year from "absconding" -- going into hiding to avoid deportation.

But critics say Cerda and other Homeland Security officials have exaggerated the extent of the problem. They point to a Justice Department study that put part of the blame on immigration officials, saying they'd failed to keep adequate records to track aliens.

government-issued electronic monitors on people who have done nothing wrong. got that? are we okay with that? i hope so, because right now “we the people” are responsible for our government engaging in a spectacular array of activities that once were considered un-American. instead of taking to the streets in protest, we are enabling the corrosion of Americanism, all in the name of patriotism and fighting “terrists” and scaring children.

bit by little bit we are lowering our standards where they are important. and we don’t even notice it happening.

george bush may not be the devil incarnate—but at the very least, W has the cell phone number of the beast tattooed on his ass. what’s more likely is that the administration has beelzebub on retainer, paid for with your tax dollars, and is keeping our god-fearing nation in the dark about it.

i’ve given it a lot of thought. and i’m pretty sure i was right to tell you.