Reader Lori Hoeck writes the following beautifully mocking response to the news mentioned in this piece the other day:
Dear Secretary Janet Napolitano of the Department of Homeland Security,
I am here to formally and officially apologize for being what your department defines as a radicalized, right-wing extremist. I also now renounce my tendency to bitterly cling to my guns and my religion.
Please no longer count me among the fear-mongering, strident voices that manipulate political prejudices in expanded and accusatory propaganda campaigns advocating less government and more personal responsibility. Although I was never a member of any militias, nor am I a white supremacists, I am truly repentant … er … I mean free of my once deeply held beliefs in the validity of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, including the right to free speech and honest dissent. I realize now that such extremism is harmful to the hope and parental beneficence of my very much esteemed and unerringly wise president and his members of Congress.
I also hereby give up my once unswerving sense of individual resiliency, personal integrity, and Christ-based sense of morals and character development. These, too, are but a hindrance to the more enlightened, intellectual, and seasoned opinions and actions of those who have a higher education worthy of my subservience.
I mean, really, how foolish I was to think God was a part of the founding and blessing of this nation. How anti-intellectual of me to believe in the Bible. How silly of me to obey such a big, bad deity who has the audacity to call homosexuality, all lying, and arrogance sin. Whew -- what a weight of responsibility I can release now! No more need to have a stupid moral compass or a way of life based in the Golden Rule.
Secretary Napolitano, I want you to also know that I now embrace handouts over actually earning a wage; bailouts over healthy business practices; and inconsistent application of laws (Timothy Geithner's unpaid taxes not being wrong enough to keep him from holding office) over the idea of equality under the law.
Furthermore, I completely reject my entire family’s history of valuing a day’s pay for a day’s work, or of honoring ingenuity and long-term perseverance when it comes to adversity. I now understand that the problems my family faced -- the Oklahoma dustbowl, three wars, and the Great Depression – could have been made better if the government had just printed more money and given it to my grandparents.
Oh, Secretary Napolitano, I feel so much better now that I’m saved from all that bad thinking. Please keep up the good work of reminding us just how our national security is compromised by all those confused, radicalized, and anti-intellectual types. And please, please, don’t let those military types coming back from our wars get radicalized either! Heaven forbid … er … I mean Congress forbid that those veterans have their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat exploited. We all know how mindless soldiers can be, right Secretary? *knowing wink* I mean, hey, it can’t be true that they really care about their country, the Constitution, or regular citizens, right? I’m sure you even have proof somewhere that those Navy SEALs who rescued Captain Richard Phillips from the pirates are really just chomping at the bit to turn their skills on family and friends here at home. Oh, please protect us from such horrors of well-trained, loyal, and professional Special Ops people!
And on that note, please also take all the guns away from us silly citizens who would like to protect ourselves. I know the government can do a much better job. This is true because I now believe in this healthy concept: "of the government, by the government, and for the government."
So say we all!
Again, my thanks Secretary Napolitano for setting my thinking straight and helping me embrace a proper fear of my conservative neighbors, friends, and family.
Sincerely subservient,
A (Now) Unconcerned Citizen
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