[GCFL-discuss] American Security Levels

[Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List]

This may be the first time in a while that the GCFL Discussion Group
focused on a GCFL joke. At least, if anyone else wants to focus on this
one.

American security levels are funny too. The range seems to include:

Put provocative bumper stickers on your second car.

Make bombastic statements about rights other citizens should give up, and
why special procedures should be developed so you don't have to wait in
long lines at the airport.

Refuse to eat fried stringy potatoes with your hamburger.

Install complex screening equipment and intrusive search procedures at
randomly selected buildings in 57 medium size cities with small or no
immigrant communities, no major defense contractors among local
employers, located at least 300 miles from the nearest coast.

But American security levels do NOT include:

Give back one half of last tax cut, to buy the troops whatever they need
to 
a) survive, and
b) win.

Stop driving gas-guzzlers and ride the bus to reduce dependence on
foreign oil.
(There is a great WW II era poster that says "Kick the Oil Habit."

Massive throngs of people who cheered the war effort volunteering to
actually serve in any branch of the military that will accept them, even
if it means interrupting college or putting a promising career on hold,
so that there will be sufficient personnel to do the job right without
stretching our military thin in other vital areas.

NEED I SAY MORE? TAKE A LOOK AT THE WAY LEADING CITIZENS TURNED OUT FOR
BOTH SIDES IN THE CIVIL WAR, AND IN WORLD WAR II. (Yes, the Armours, the
Mellons, the Rockefellers, purchased substitutes, but people of integrity
went to the front lines).

Siarlys

P.S. C.S. Lewis wrote, through the sarcasm of Screwtape, that the English
are "the most deplorable milksops. They are creatures of that miserable
sort who loudly proclaim that torture is too good for their enemies and
then give tea and cigarettes to the first wounded German pilot who turns
up at the back door." It seems to me that Lewis approved of that as a
Christian thing to do, behavior that only a devil would deplore. Unlike
our grandparents, the English, French, Italians, Germans, Belgians, have
seen wars actually fought on their own soil, their cities bombed nightly
for years at a time, their economy utterly disrupted by warfare. For
those Americans not actually serving in the military, wartime has meant
lots of overtime and, at worst, a bit of rationing.