If you ask me it’s the fault of those damn do-gooders who can never leave well enough alone. Every time we get the country running along nicely, they decide it needs improving. They some group that they say is getting screwed by the status quo. Show me a system that doesn’t screw some existing group or other and I’ll get you a lifetime pass to Madison Square Garden. So they go and tinker with it, and that invariably makes it worse.

You can go back as far as you want in world history, even as far as the Garden of Eden, but in America I think the best example was the Civil War. We had a pretty solid country before that. Everybody knew the rules. Blacks did the work, whites made the money and the laws and judges knew which side their bread was buttered on. Politicians respected what the people wanted. King Cotton was bringing in the bucks from overseas and the planters’ wives were starting to explore dress styles in Paris. The only complainers were nut cases like John Brown. Troublemakers.

Take Harper’s Ferry : we settled John Brown’s hash, but by then the do-gooders were onto Jim Crow, and they started mining it for all they were worth. It was worth 620,000 soldiers’ lives before they were through, and what they started still ain’t over. All that to cater to a minority of slaves who didn’t even have enough education to understand that they were oppressed. We wound up educating them, and what did it get us? Or them?

Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that Kaepernick’s taking of a knee is in the same class as Fort Sumter, but sit back and think about it. The football industry was rocking along pretty solidly on the basis of its accepted myths. Colleges offered the inducement of a free degree to the suckers who suffered concussions getting banged around on the Astroturf-covered concrete of the gridirons every fall. The NCAA, supported by the dues paid by the pro team owners, enforced the rules of ‘amateurism’, to make sure that the suckers got no part of the TV and clothing revenues, or the ticket sales, or the TV contracts. All the money went to the extravagant salaries the college presidents had to pay to attract quality coaches and the bonuses they paid to the lobbyists who were required to ensure that their fancy arenas were financed by taxpayer funds and not by the institutions themselves. Everything was running smoothly. Nobody wanted to rock the boat.

Then along came Kaepernick, and suddenly our guaranteed weekend entertainment (and vacation from politics) was in jeopardy. Now we had to think about brain damage, fake degrees that everyone knew represented mastery of such scholarly subjects as ‘Canoeing’ and ‘Aspects of Athletic Training’, and we had to consider who was going to pay for the health care of all those used-up punch-drunk gladiators. This from late August to February — almost half the year — and you can bet it will spill over in some form to baseball and basketball, the other major escapist windows for those not yet ready to turn to porn.

Do-gooders! Why can’t they take a minute to consider the results before they just go down on one knee ‘to express solidarity’? Solidarity with whom? With what? If this is all about Black Lives Matter and fixing the system that killed Trayvon Martin and assured George Zimmerman that he was going to get no more than a slap on the wrist, why not go after that system directly? Don’t interfere with my one chance at the end of the week to just enjoy myself without thinking about whether four years will be enough time for Donald to completely destroy the country or whether we will see through him in time?

Have we lost our minds? Football should be sacred!

Hey, Joe, know anything about this guy?

Kelley? Devin? No. Wait, let me see that form again. Dishonorable? One-year sentence?

That’s what it says. Beat up his wife and kid. The kid died. Skull fracture.

Well. His life’s finished now. With a dishonorable he’s going to be looking a long time to find a job. He’ll wind up like all the others — working under the table for peanuts. No benefits. No pension. A lot of them go for the bottle. Or something stronger. End up on the street, sleeping on a piece of cardboard. He’ll need a lot of luck.

Shame, in a way. Sometimes I hate this job. Couldn’t the Air Force have found something less mean for me to do? One moment of anger and he’s finished. Surely he didn’t mean to kill the kid. Just flipped. A few seconds out of control and his whole life is ruined. Do you ever stop to think how many lives we are ruining? There are well over a hundred DDs issued every day of the year. It may be just paperwork to you and me, but it’s life and death for the people who get them. Now where are those notification sheets for the NCIC* database? Got to let them know to put his name on the no gun buy list.

Should be right here, but the slot’s empty.

We do use ‘em up fast. Maybe something about the Air Corps attracts people with short fuses. I’ll call Supply for some more.

OK. Put his file on the table; we’ll finish it after lunch. Still seems like a pretty heavy hit. Still young and his future’s already gone — just like that.

[Later]

Joe, where’s that Kelley file? I thought I left it right here.

Some eager beaver must have grabbed it and sent it on down the line. I’ll go track it down.

Y’know what? Never mind. Maybe someone’s sending us a message. “Charity begins at home” or something like that. Tough enough for him to be getting a DD without us piling it on. Let it go. Who’s to know? Mistakes happen. No system is perfect. We’re supposed to be the country of second chances. Who you got next?

________________

[The FBI’s National Crime Information Center.]

I have been chosen, Dear Leader, to bring you bad news. Reluctant as I am to disturb Your Serenity with upsetting tidings, I have seen to it that my insurance is paid up and sent my wife and children to visit China for a while, and here I am, prepared to do my duty.

We followed your infallible advice, Brilliant Leader, and issued a back channel invitation to President Trump, promising him the largest crowd of human beings ever assembled if he would come to Pyongyang for talks. As your unerring judgment predicted, he accepted on the condition that his trip be made to seem accidental. Accordingly, it was arranged for Air Force One to be afflicted with motor trouble while passing over the DPRK, and it landed safely at the Sunan Airport yesterday afternoon. No official ceremony was arranged, since this was an “unintended” visit.

While we awaited your “notification”, Great Leader, and your decision as to whether or not to personally appear, we organized, as you had instructed, a flash mob to assemble in Kim Il-sung Square, so that “no bit of pavement should be visible from any elevated photographic view”. To this crowd President Trump was presented, and he seemed delighted, waving and smiling from the roof of the Grand People’s House. He was informed, as the Beloved Father of the Nation had suggested, that the official count of attendees was “well over a million”, although the largest crowd ever actually assembled there was 100,000. He welcomed the estimate and gave a thumbs-up, saying “Take that, Hillary!” which seems to be one of his mantras.

His entourage seemed somewhat less enthusiastic, but deferred to their leader when he proposed a toast to you, Great General, as “one of the good people on both sides” of the question of who should be first to press the Red Button. No formal talks were scheduled, and President Trump’s wife’s request for a permit for a trunk show of some of her best-selling items was declined. (It was turned down on the grounds that it might be seen as an insult to the surviving families from the ongoing famine in the north of our nation.)

A backup plane that happened to be in the area — something called the Emmelt Two — was summoned from South Korea, and the entire party was re-assembled at the airport, where a parade had been organized and a red carpet had been spread, when the totally unexpected happened.

The State Department in Washington notified us through the back channel that President Trump would not be allowed to re-enter the United States. His passport had been revoked by Congressional vote, together with those of all his family members.

There being no other country that would volunteer to take them, Tsar Putin offered a thirty-day visitor’s visa, which Mr. Trump accepted. After delivering him to Moscow, the back-up aircraft then departed, leaving him and his family stranded in one of the hotels in which he happens to have a controlling interest in that city.

The next steps are unclear at this point, Dear Sun of the Communist Future, except that I would like take this occasion to remind you that I had no part in arranging any of these events, and that beheading the messenger who brings bad news is no longer generally regarded as proper world-class diplomatic behavior.

Who are these fellows gripping my elbows? Where am I being taken?