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"Just build the danged fence," Senator John McCain, wearing jeans and talking to a sheriff at the Arizona-Mexico border, says in a frequently-run Arizona TV ad urging a crackdown on illegal immigration. While I do not necessarily agree with the Senator's sentiment, I like the way he forthrightly cuts to the chase, skipping over nuance and complexity. Sometimes one lacks the patience to present a well-formed, cogently argued viewpoint and just wants to vent. I hope McCain won't mind if I borrow his formula to express a few unexplained, unsupported opinions of my own, as follows:
Just get the danged American troops out of Afghanistan
Just stop the danged American involvement in nation-building
Just accept the danged fact that the U.S. has no obligation to broker peace in the Middle East
Just acknowledge that the danged enhanced interrogation methods work, although they may be illegal, immoral, and ill-advised
Just build the danged Star Wars missile shield
Just invest five percent of the national budget in the danged space program
Just legalize the danged marijuana
Just release the danged prisoners who were sentenced only for their use of illegal drugs
Just legalize the danged gay marriage
Just require all employers to conduct a danged sexual harrassment class for their employees
Just outlaw the carrying of handguns--open or concealed
Just raise the danged gas tax by five cents a gallon each month for a year
and devote the proceeds to the development and improvement of transportation infrastructure--roads, bridges, railroads, airports
Just institute the danged Value Added Tax
Just require the inclusion of the danged sales tax in the price of any item or service offered for sale anywhere in the U.S.
Just raise the danged debt ceiling before reaching a budget agreement
Just start considering a danged guaranteed income for individuals and families who are below the poverty level
Just learn to live with the danged global warming
Just encourage more danged exploration of domestic sources for oil and natural gas
Just cut off all the danged agriculture subsidies
Just end all the danged tax breaks for the oil companies
Just end the danged government financial contributions to NPR and PBS
Just require the danged nutrition information to be made available for any food or beverage sold at any venue anywhere in the U.S.
Just require a danged permanent ignition lock breathalyzer on the vehicles of any driver who has even once had a DUI conviction
Just set the danged public and private AC thermostats at 80 degrees
Just make all the danged undergraduate college classes that do not require labs available online
Just institute a danged salary cap for major league baseball teams
Just ban the use of the danged smokeless tobacco by baseball players
Just intitute a danged time limit of 20 seconds between pitches in all major league baseball games
Just eliminate the danged interleague play in the major leagues
Just abolish the danged divisions in the American and National Leagues, have all teams play each other the same number of times, place the top eight teams in each league into a seeded tournament, and play a series of best-of-five-game sets with losers dropping out and the final winner advancing to a best-of-seven World Series
Just abolish the danged college football bowl games and institute a 48-team single elimination tournament to determine the national champion
Just take the danged NBA MPV award away from Derrick Rose and give it to Dirk Nowitski
Just reduce by half the number of danged permissible timeouts in televised college and pro basketball games
Just allow each team to use only one danged timeout in the last two minutes of the game
Just designate what are now the danged women's golf tees for use by men 70+ and create new forward tees for women 70+
Just abolish the danged dress codes for all golf courses open to the public
Just make James Spader the danged replacement for Steve Carrell on "The Office"
Just cancel the danged "Two and a Half Men" altogether
Just call the danged "The Middle" a better sit-com than the danged politically correct "Modern Family"
Just ban the danged low-level humor of fart jokes and hit-in-the-crotch scenes from all American movies and TV programs
Just set a danged age limit of 39 for all contestants on "Dancing With The Stars"
Just go ahead and bank on Sarah Palin seeking to become the danged Republican nominee for President
Just commit Jaren Loughner to the danged insane asylum for life
Just concede that you'd have to be on your danged cellphone 12 hours a day for 20 years to be in any danger of developing a cellphone-induced cancer
Just assume that there is life on some of the other danged planets in the universe
Just give no more danged media attention to any doomsday prophecies
Just maintain your optimism in the face of human and natural disasters
Just don't ask me to justify or qualify any of these danged rants
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