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By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff writer
Whilst I am not a fan of beauty pageants, I got more than a little grumbly when Miss USA was booed the other night at the Miss Universe pageant.
Disclaimer: I was not watching the pageant. I don’t, generally, watch pageants. I have several dear friends who are as deeply immersed in pageants as I am in beaver swamps.
That’s their prerogative. While I despise mothers who push their kids into every Little Miss contest they can find, I have no problem with families who really enjoy pageants.
But the mothers who abuse their children in the quest for the title of Tiny Miss Subterranean Whole Milk are a column for another day.
Rachel Smith seems to be a nice enough young lady. She’s the reigning Miss USA, and she was representing our country in the Miss Universe pageant in Mexico City when she got booed.
None of the other contestants got booed. The talking heads and presidential wannabees immediately began explaining that the boos came from people not meaning to insult Miss Rachel, but rather folks who have issues with the war in Iraq and the fact that we would even consider treating illegal aliens like criminals. The fact that at least some of the presidential wannabees act like really mean-spirited contestants in the aforementioned Miss Subterranean Whole Milk pageant is also a column for another day.
Those hecklers in Mexico City got me to thinking – angrily, I must admit – that if they despise us so much, maybe we should leave them alone.
Stay with me here.
As an American, I don’t give a hairy rat what other countries think of ours. I think we need to concentrate on solving our own problems, and not worry about world opinion. Not a single Frenchman, Mexican, Brazilian, German, or Rhodesian has ever paid my taxes or bought my groceries. Hence, I don’t care if they don’t like us.
As provincial as it may sound, I think our country became weak when we started wanting everybody to like us. I don’t think we should be bullies, don’t get me wrong, but when people knew the U.S. could and would eat their lunch if they misbehaved, we commanded respect, if not admiration, from those other, lesser countries (which is about all of them).
Back when America was still an imperial nation, people were not wont to mess with us. Now we allow people to apologize for foreigners by blaming said foreigners’ rude behavior on us.
If they don’t like us, then by cracky, let’s take our toys and go home.
If we pulled all American investments from foreign banks and industries and put it into our own, our economy would be better than fine. Never mind the fact that the loudest complainers would hear their children cry with hunger at night.
Remove our peacekeepers and warriors from all foreign soil, and let them solve their own problems. Ignore the genocide that would result.
Use that military to protect our borders, and forcibly prevent virtually any immigrants from coming in.
Tax foreign vessels that enter our ports the way they tax ours, and forbid import of the shoddy overseas made stuff that replaced good American quality.
Bar imports of foreign grain, and make it so every farmer truly worth his salt can afford to feed his family and achieve a lifestyle worthy of one upon whom so much rests. I’d guarantee if American producers had to use apolitical grain products made here, we wouldn’t have found poison in wheat gluten used to make pet food.
But what about the oil, you say? We have to have oil. Ergo, we have to get along with everybody.
For one thing, I think the biggest reason the oil companies are making such record profits is because people won’t cut back on unnecessary traveling. I drive a minimum of 75 miles every day, but the side trips, the visits to family, the fun stuff – when gas prices broke $2.60 those trips began to diminish. When they hit $3, we don’t drive more than we have to.
Some driving is essential, but a lot of it isn’t. As long as people are willing to pay $3 a gallon for gas, the oil companies will cheerfully sell it for that. When they see sales drop, the costs will drop, too. That’s called a free market economy. That’s why there’s such a drive toward biodiesel. People see a new market for a product, and they’re lining up to play a part and make a profit in that process.
But, you say, we’ll still need oil, even if usage was cut back.
So we take it. We inform the oi-producing countries that if they want our business, fine, this is what we’ll pay. If they refuse, we use that military that used to protect them to take the oil.
I truly don’t think we’d have to annex more than one country before the world understood they were dealing with a new, angry America tired of being spat upon for solving other people’s problems.
And I’d like to humbly suggest that we simply annex Mexico.
If we annex Mexico, we solve the immigration problem. Many people down there want to move here anyway, so we’ll just make them instant, tax-paying Americans.
We solve the problems created by companies moving their operations south to avoid big taxes. We bring more than half the world’s major drug labs under American jurisdiction, so they can be destroyed without worrying about a half-starved local policeman being blackmailed into protecting the traffickers. Plus, Mexico has a lot of oil.
Economically, demographically and strategically, I think it makes sense to just take Mexico back. We won the country in the 1848 war anyway, but the politicians gave it back.
If we annexed Mexico, it would solve our oil problems, much of the immigration problem, and take a bite out of the drug problem. Plus, people would respect us again, because they would understand we had the ability to annex them, too.
And if nothing else, maybe that would prevent a pretty little girl from Tennessee having her dreams tarnished by people who hate her just because she’s from the greatest country on this planet.
They’d learn pretty quick not to be rude – it could get you annexed.
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