The zero-sum of Tom Coburn and his “principles”
Tom Coburn is a principled man. That is, he acts in strict accordance with his principles, even more than most principled people. Unlike other principled people, however, his principle are wrong. Damn near all of them.
It’s hard to say where he picked up all these bad principles. It might have been the course in tax shelters that most doctors take instead of ethics. Or it could be from hanging out with the odd Chrisitan brotherhood known as The Family. The Family maintains a group residence of our high moral leaders, like Tom Coburn, who subscribed to strict Christian principles. Oddly, however, the particular principles which they call Christian are wrong too. Ask fellow Family man John Ensign. In fact, it seems our principled friend Tom Coburn was one of those who tried to hush up the whole unChristian affair of John Ensign. Then he lied about his role. Both of these acts might be considered unprincipled by more Orthodox Christians, but Coburn has always been more about strictness of principle than rightness of it.
Coburn is strictly conservative. To him this means, to those God allowed to suffer we must not lend a helping hand if we can help it. He’s pretty strict about that. he tried to deny aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy. There are usually no hurricanes in Oklahoma, where reside the people who send him to Washington, D.C., where the rest of us pay for his principles. So there really wasn’t any need to help any hurricane victims. Pretty simple principle. Except, the GOP, Jesus’s rod for the suffering, might have suffered themselves in other parts of the country. So Coburn was forced to relent. (It’s hard to see how he decides which principle override which, strict as he is to follow the remarkably few principles he has. But I bet he gets guidance from the God of Wrath. The One Who hated the Moabites.)
And then the tornado that swept through Moore, Oklahoma, came yesterday. It is inexplicable how this happened. Something like this in, say, San Francisco or New York City or Boston, and yes we could see. It would undoubtedly be a scourge by the Lord of the Family against those who have no principles (or at least not the wrong ones). But these people, who live where the wind comes whistling down the poe plain, are the people who send him to D.C., where the Family has a building and where he does God’s work from the belly of the Leviathan. So what to do now?
Evidently he had an encounter at a Burning Bush. (A righteous Bush. Not one that spent so much when he was President.) He, Tom Coburn that is, says that he will not vote for aid for the tornado victims in his state unless there are equivalent cuts in the federal budget elsewere. You see God has made the damage so apparent and so viscerally appealing to those with even the least amount of empathy that Coburn can use it to further his other principle: reducing government’s help to others. He knows that his state’s victims will get relief, even without his “help,” so he can stand up for the principle that Jesus inherited from that religious leader Ronald Reagan. And that principle is: We are not fellow citizens in this together. We are consumers who live in a zero-sum society.
You could look it up in Scripture. But you don’t have to. Tom Coburn, when not helping the Elect remain elected by hiding their sins, has done all the research into scriptural principles that’s necessary.
So what do we cut. Here are my suggestions:
1. The Coast Guard Institute in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Yes, there is a Coast Guard institute in a state that has no coast. So let’s get rid of it. And get rid of the Coast Guard’s Container Inspection Training Center in Oklahoma City. Those boys need to inspect containers in real world conditions: where they can smell salt water and rotting fish. Not in the middle of a dust bowl.
2. While we’re at it, let’s get rid of: Fort Sill, Lawton, Oklahoma; Altus Air Force Base in Altus, Oklahoma; Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City; and Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma. If we need all those bees they should be nearer to places where enemies might attack us. For example, they should be in northern states near the porous Canadian border.
3. Yes, border security. Don’t need it. I live far, far away from Arizona. I did that on purpose. Those people want to build a fend. Knock yourselves out. Make it as high as the Tower of Babel. Coburn can tell you about that. But don’t bother the rest of us consumers about it.
4. Agricultural subsidies for grains. Like wheat, corn, sorghum, rye. You know, all those things that are grown in Oklahoma. Screw ‘em. Let them grow marijuana. That isn’t subsidized by the rest of us and it’s still the third biggest cash crop in Oklahoma.
5. And since his constituents make so much money from it, there must be something to be said for it. So let’s legalize marijuana. That will save lots and lots and lots of money currently used to pay for the war on drugs. Not to mention the money that is used to buy off some portion of those intrepid warriors against drugs.
6. Let’s prohibit the armed forces from buying TV time to advertise during college sports. Or at least during University of Oklahoma football games. I don’t know how much that will save, but it can’t be nothing. And who watches Schooner football anyway?
If those things don’t cover it, Tom Coburn can get back to me. I have a whole lot of other suggestions. That way he can strut about being the deficit hawk and not have to worry about the suffering of his constituents. Not that he worries about that, just about how they might vote as a result of feeling the lash of his “principles.”
