I was working at my computer in the back room when my two dogs started barking like crazy, which is typically how I know that someone has arrived at my front door. I sprinted to my door and was astonished at what I saw when I opened it.
For there was George, the chairman of my local neighborhood association standing on my front porch with a tiger on a chain.
"Howdy!", he said in that western drawl he affects (I know for a fact he was born in Connecticut), "we've been havin' a mess o' trouble in the neighborhood and we need to keep y'all safe, so I'm bringin' you this tiger".
"Wha... WHAT!?!", I barely managed to spit out.
"Yeah, this tiger right here. He's a beaut, ain't he?", he said. I could never be quite sure if that was a grin on his face, or a smirk.
"Yes, he's really... something...", I replied. Keep in mind that my dogs are still going nuts, barking up a storm... while the tiger was just pacing back and forth, and occasionally straining at his leash.
"But I've got these dogs here to protect my house, and they've always kept me safe before. If anyone comes near the house, they let me know, and they've always deterred burglars in the past. I feel pretty safe with them."
"I hate to tell, ya", said George, "but this isn't like the old days. Those dogs you have are nice and all, but it's a whole new ball-game. If you're going to keep your family safe in this uncertain world, nothing will deter those burglars and street punks like a tiger. Look at them sharp claws he's got. And them teeth. I tell you, those junkies'll think twice before they mess with our neighborhood if we've got these tigers defendin' us!"
"But aren't tigers, like, really dangerous?", I asked.
"Well, that's the whole point!", replied George.
"No... no... what I mean is the tiger may keep my family safe from burglars... but what'll keep us safe from the tiger?". This was a fairly pressing concern of mine, insofar as I didn't like the steady unblinking glare with which the tiger was regarding me at that very moment.
"Who, Alberto here? He's just a big pussycat! You can trust him. He'd never turn on you!", George assured me.
"Well, how can I know that for sure? If I'm not mistaken, tigers have a long history, going back to, oh, the dawn of time.. of being aggressive and predatory. I mean, is he housebroken?" Looking at the tiger, I was pretty sure that if I let him in the house, that would be the least of my concerns.
"You're thinkin' of them Asian or African or European tigers. Sure, you can't trust one of them as far as you can throw 'em. But this is an American tiger. They've never caused a lick o'trouble for their owners!", George reassured me.
I was pretty sure that this would be because Americans hadn't, by and large, become big fans of tigers in the past... but I held my tongue.
"I'll tell you what", George said, "Lets compromise. If you feel that you're safer with your dogs, you can keep one of 'em to keep an eye on the tiger, I just want you to replace the other one with Alberto here. You'll never live to regret it."
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OK, I've belabored the metaphor enough. My serious point here is that this administration is trying to sell us the tools of totalitarianism to keep us safe, but history has demonstrated, time and again that we can't entrust such powers to government.
Even if we could trust the persons within this administration with such powers (and we can't), for us to go down the path of inflating the police powers of the state... and expanding the power of the executive branch to act without oversight is to insure that one day, and probably sooner rather than later, we won't have to worry about the Saddams and the Idi Amins and the Gaddafis or any of those brutal foreign strongmen threatening the liberty or the safety of the people of the United States... because we'll have one of our own.
The Republicans are trying to sell us a tiger to defend our homes. It won't work. It has never worked. And the only reason it takes any imagination to see where it will lead is because the American people somehow have come to believe that the laws of human nature do not apply here. We are the Good Guys and our leaders will not fail us.
That's not what our nation's founders believed, and that's not our heritage. We must never, ever, ever let that tiger into our homes.
Call your Senators and Congressmen and let them know. Right now.