First off, this country should just declare victory in the "War on drugs" and end it right away.

Last edited Sat Nov 15, 2014, 05:41 AM - Edit history (1)

Close a lot of prisons, pardon non-violent drug offenders and revert our entire law enforcement model back into the community policing phase, add to it a healthy dose of demilitarization as well.

Same goes for any of our other so-called "wars" as well. We're just not very good at this stuff. Or maybe we're the best at lying about them. Nothing is ever what it seems.

However, given our track record as a nation to conduct counter-intuitive wars for fun and profit, perhaps we should use our well established skill-set and flip the script?

I can think of several "wars" we can launch that all have to potential to reap a mountain-load of beneficial results:

- Let's declare a War on Niceness:

"A True American is a Complete Asshole," our newly appointed Anti-Niceness Czar could declare. Well since people in this country all seem to have an instinctive urge to rebel against authority, I would say that the positive vibes would start perking up in a heartbeat.

Folks would think twice before shooting, beating and stabbing each other, simply because the government said that they should.

Not just that, but based on our own well worn and precedented patterns of policy creation, the government's own anti-niceness efforts would quickly have the opposite effect. The huge Anti-Niceness Industrial Complex would actually develop into mankind's greatest purveyor of human niceness ever.

The society would develop an entire underground economy of niceness. Roving gangs of rebelliously friendly youth would roam our streets in order to commit unwarranted acts of human kindness against completely unsuspecting strangers.

This country would become sweeter than a four week old puppy in an instant.

- Let's declare a War on Smartness:

"It's your duty as an American citizen to be a complete moron," so would say the newly appointed Ignorance Czar. "The greatest threat to this country is a well informed an thoughtful populace and we pledge to do everything within our power to end this scourge."

The response to such an announcement would be almost immediate, of course. All of the sudden, it wouldn't be as fashionable as it is today for a lot of Americans to look and sound like utter doofuses.

At elections, well informed voters would be wiling to stand in lines for hours on end to vote for the best candidates and most productive and positive choices on various ballot measures as a citizens protest.

Our newly developed Ignorance Industrial Complex would become the single most important engine of rational decision making, because of all the profit that it generates by perpetuating itself.

At kitchen tables all across this great land, dumbass parents would scold their children for getting good grades and reading books instead of playing video games, and those kids would act out against their parents by becoming well-informed and productive individuals, because as we all know, kids hate being told what to do.

The arts and sciences would become very attractive endeavors to the counter-culture crowd. Learning about history and civics would become acts of civil disobedience.

An American War on Ignorance would have the potential to turn this country into the most educated and well informed society on the face of this Earth.

- Let's declare a War on Healthy Living:

Our experience with First Lady's campaign for healthy eating and exercise has been highly instructive. Many Americans actually came out against living and eating well. Perhaps an opposite approach would have better results.

Since the vast majority of complacently sedentary slobs in this country all elicit a visceral reaction against people unlike themselves, it would be most helpful to appoint someone that they would loathe to identify with.

Thus, our Anti-Healthy Living Czar should be an unkempt and obese ethnic minority woman (immigrant perhaps). Announcing anti-healthy dictums from the comfort of her La-z-boy chair, she would encourage her fellow Americans to do absolutely nothing that would be beneficially strenuous or nutritionally helpful.

Pointing a Doritos stained finger at America, she would impart that a life filled with diabetes, high-blood pressure and morbid obesity was our civic responsibility and the best thing ever and she would encourage all citizens to live their own lives accordingly.

The spontaneous protests against the government suggested paradigm would be explosive.

Fresh fruits and vegetables could be reclassified as "junk food" and the prices would fall. Salad delivery franchises could pop up overnight.

Running, walking and biking would become popular to the formerly Fat Lazy Bum set.

"I don't like the government telling me what to do," could say the winner of a local marathon, a former 300 pound couch potato who was incensed when an overweight brown woman with a funny accent told him that he was just like her.

If you have spent some time trying to figure out why this country seems bound and determined to do the complete opposite of the rest of the Western Industrial Civilization, you'll come to the conclusion that our fault lies in exhibiting a rebelliously contrarian streak a mile wide.

It's that thing about us which makes actual common sense all too uncommon against other countries in term of standard of living, equality and fairness. Too many people in this country believe that that foreign crap is for suckers and respond accordingly.

We're Americans, Gawd dammit! We hate being told what to do, even it's ultimately for the common good.

Perhaps it's time to declare a War on Common Sense as well, since it's all too uncommon these days.