Bang Bang

Many were alarmed when the TIPS program was proposed by the Bush administration. TIPS would have mailmen and meter readers spying on the general public as a part of the war on terror. For many, the idea of a "civilian corps" spying on their fellow citizens at the bequest of the government was eerily reminiscent life in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. In short, the most un-American thing that could be imagined.

But the Bush administration's naked power grab for these and other civil liberties has proceeded unhindered by a worried, yet impotent illuminati. After all, how many Democratic leaders voted for the civil rights-crushing PATRIOT act? The fact is, Bush has safely disposed of virtually all of the rights Americans might have possessed preventing unfair and/or unwarranted persecution by the government, excepting of course those conferred by wealth.

Bring guns into that picture, and everything changes.

Once guns rights are on the table, the Constitution starts to mean something to Bush because a cross section of the public willfully ignorant of the more egregious violations start to take notice of common sense suggestions, like registering guns.

More specifically, once you start talking about gun rights, an army of under-achieving white men in the south and west, (the heart of "Bush country"), who likely don't understand all their rights are already gone start getting extremely agitated because they think their guns somehow matter. These are the absolute core of Bush's base, and no Republican has a chance of getting elected anywhere in flyover without them. Hammered by the economic reality of the place of rural America in a global economy, they may have lost their good paying jobs, but like hell are they giving up their guns. The driver behind this mentality is the belief they might need them to "keep the federal government in line". These are the actual "rural values" Karl Rove and George Bush have to worry about. What is even more scary than the mentality of these yahoos bent on insurrection is the fact that the Bush administration has no choice but to gratify their paranoia.

Even as a demented sniper played a slow motion version of the tragedy at Columbine High School in the Nation's Capital yesterday, Bush was forced to express concern about the "privacy rights" of the trailer park set in the rural south and west. The same George Bush who decided that if he terms an American citizen an "enemy combatant", they no longer have the right to a trial, a lawyer, or even a phone call. For everything else, Bush is like the anti-Constitution. But once you start talking gun rights, he starts sounding like the ACLU.

Our cars are licensed. Our marriages are licensed. Our businesses are licensed. The government has full access to our financial records. Even our dogs are licensed. All of that is just fine, but somehow it becomes a constitutional crisis for the Bush administration if a skinhead with a swastika tattooed on his neck is asked to register an assault weapon. And America apparently can't do a damn thing about it.

As they say in Texas, yee-ha.