Satan in a Three-Piece Suit
by Bob Wallace
bob.wallace@att.net

Exclusive to TLE

I have a pretty good guess how the story of Satan got started. Thousands of years ago some perceptive guy looked at the King and all of his advisors and noticed they were a bunch of power-hungry liars interested only in what they could grab for themselves, even if they had really conned themselves into thinking they were the public's benefactors. So, this guy decided (wisely, it turns out), "I think I'll write a story to warn everyone about these kinds of carbuncles. It will be short and sweet and to the point and, with any kind of luck, will last thousands of years."

And so it has, even though most people mistakenly believe Satan = funny guy with horns and a tail instead of Satan = politician = serial killer. Outside of a party, I've never seen any guy with a spaded tail, although, now that I think about it, I've never seen Richard Gephart's eyebrows either, and he exists, at least in a corporeal sense, although on the inside he seems to be as empty as a Halloween mask.

Now maybe way back in the past the kind of people I'm talking about were called kings, and wore robes and crowns, and today they're called politicians and have three-piece suits, but the truth about them, and about human nature, never changes.

I'm not grateful to any of them for anything, no matter what name they go under or what wonders they claim they've done for me, as if wars and taxes and inflation are wonders in anything outside of an H.P. Lovecraft story. I consider nearly all politicians to be big gasbags of lies walking around with little human heads on top. Whether the little human heads are smiling or not is irrelevant.

Even that gasbag description isn't quite right. Better? "Rodents of Unusually Human Appearance" is more accurate. Best of all? Huge swarms of parasitical bacteria shaped like people.

Almost all of them wouldn't know the truth if it smacked them like a Greyhoud bus. If anyone told them what is was they'd probably lie on their backs like bugs and point and laugh at you. Lying is such a nasty habit that kids used to have their mouths washed out with soap. It makes me wish I had some kind of wizardly powers, so every time a politician told a lie I could point my wand at him and a bar of Palmolive would appear in his mouth. That would be especially good on TV: "And if elected I promise to—urf! urf!"

I have this cartoon idea, which I should send in to somebody because I sure can't draw it, in which a politician on a podium is giving a speech, and out of a cloud comes the Hand of God with the index finger drawn back and aimed at the speaker's head, the way you'd flick a bug.

Politicians can't even get the schools right, which isn't helped considering education majors are at the intellectual bottom of the barrel. How many politicians or teachers know the Pledge of Allegiance was written by a Commie? Students would be better off if every morning they recited, "Fleas and ticks are not our friends, and like them politicians will lie and cheat us to the end." There's more truth to that poem than to those goofy books about Dick and Jane and Spot and Pony running around the yard all day and never doing anything else.

The things politicians do to the economy! It'd be unbelievable if I didn't know they're idiots. Short-sighted idiots. The dollar has lost 95% of its value in less than 100 years, all of it due to the intervention of the Federal Reserve Bank, which is now run by a bit actor from Night of the Undead Bores Who Talk Gobbledygook.

Even though most people don't know it, incompetent central bankers (but I repeat myself) are much, much more dangerous than merely incompetent politicians. Alan "the Zombie" Greenspan is unreeling paper money like toilet tissue from a roll. It's backed with nothing, not even smoke and mirrors. Someday, it will be worth just as much as toilet paper.

At the rate the dollar is losing its value, in another 10 years the only car I'll be able to afford is one of those little Fisher-Price ones, the ones driven by those little toy people with no arms and legs. God only knows how I'll fit into one of them.

Every time I blink a new law is passed, one that is supposed to increase my safety but instead decreases my sanity. In a few more years I assume I'll be totally safe and completely insane. But by then I'll be so crazy I won't care if I'm safe or not, although if I ever give it any thought I'll think I'm safe because I'll be so crazy I'll enjoy living in a shopping cart and wearing garbage bags as clothes. And probably wearing a surgical mask, too.

I've had people tell me that the federal government has prevented any more terrorist attacks since 9/11, ignoring the fact the very same people couldn't prevent them in the first place, even though the terrorists were doing everything except carrying around big signs.

When I tell such people what they're saying is the fallacy of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" they look at me like I've sprouted antenna. Maybe I should show them my Magic Terrorist-Sniffer-Outer ring I found in a bag of Cheesy Poofs. Since I've been wearing it there haven't been any terrorist attacks, except for those people shot by two snipers. And a few others who were shot, too.

We'd be better off if we were ruled by dogs.

Politician: Give me your money and I'll solve all your problems.

Dog: Give me a biscuit and I'll go to sleep.

I'd even prefer being ruled by cats.

Cat: Go away. Your couch is next door.

Everything the government does is apparently designed to make me grind my teeth. Now it requires electrical plugs that have three prongs even though all the outlets in my house all have two, and all of this in order to save me from being shocked even though I've never been shocked in my life and have more sense than to stick my fingers or a butter knife or fork into an electrical socket. I had to buy adapters, which are about two inches long and so wobbly if I move my chair the wrong way, the plugs fall out of the socket and my computer shuts off, followed by a reboot that takes about ten minutes. And I won't even talk about trying to decipher my phone bill, which might as well be in Martian for all the sense it makes to me.

I've decided all politicians are the same, so I:

A) Pay no attention to what one party says.

B) Pay no attention to what the other party says.

Except to

C) Assume they're all lying.

I found out a few years ago the federal government has plans to whisk away all the Congresscritters and various officials and bureaucrats to a Dr. Strangelove hideaway in case of an attack. I, on the other hand, am supposed to stay where I'm at and just glow like a nuclear light-bulb or go ack from who-knows-what-kind-of horrible poisoning and then fall over and expire. It sure is nice to know that those who pay the taxes aren't worth anything, unlike those who get them, who obviously think they are worth everything.

Well, at least if there's a nuclear war I'll look radiant before I go, although I'm sure I won't feel so hot. Then again, maybe I will feel hot, although I suspect it will only be for about a zillionth of a second. One thing I will do in that last nano-nano-nano-second is give thanks I won't be around to read a liberal paper with the headline: "NUCLEAR WAR: WOMEN AND MINORITIES HIT HARDEST".

The best way to think of government and the public's relationship is the same as that of a maze to a rat, only with a Mad Scientist running the test. Satan would be proud.

Believe it or not, I pulled the plug out of the wall while writing this article. I need to get a new Magic Ring.

Laissez Faire Books

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