Not with a bang but with a whimper

And so it ends, this Great Experiment of ours, this free nation forged by a bunch of hemp-smokers and womanizers who dared say no to a king and founded a nation that not so long ago was not just the most powerful nation on earth, but one admired and emulated by the rest of the world.

No more.

No longer does the rule of law take precedence over the insanity of a despotic leader. No longer does the document in which the laws that make this country what it was mean anything. It's all about perception, and not the perception of the voters, but perception of the media talking heads with their marching orders by their corporate masters to ensure that only those who would consolidate as much wealth as possible into the hands of the few, who would yoke the unwashed, impoverished masses unto themselves in a state of permanent indentured servitude, grateful for the scraps fed to them like dogs after the CEOs and board chairmen get done stuffing themselves to stupefaction, make it to the finish line.

It didn't all die today, of course. This country has been an aspirated corpse on a ventilator, a Terri Schiavo of nations, if you will, ever since the USA PATRIOT Act was passed by a House and Senate full of cowards who were too lazy to explain to the American people that turning this country into East Germany circa 1965 is not the way we defend freedom against attack.

And Barack Obama -- our party's nominee, the guy who told a generation of young people too young to remember how they killed our prophets while we stand aside and look, the guy who for a few brief moments made us think that perhaps -- just perhaps -- he might be even one iota different, succumbed to the siren song of unfettered power and said "Want. Srsly." -- as he pushed the "Yes" button when voting today.

A president completely discredited by three-quarters of the American people still has the power to cow 535 representatives into submission simply by threatening them. Whether it's threatening them with exposure of misdeeds, or threatening them with terrorist attacks for which he will hold them responsible (when he knows exactly when and where they will take place because he will allow them to happen, just as he did last time because he wanted the war and he wanted the power and he wanted Americans to be willing to give up their freedom so he could try to fill the empty hole in his soul with more money and more power), or whether it's all a sham and they're all on the same team -- the result is the same.

The rule of law only applies to us -- the citizens of what used to be the United States. And the government will be watching us for any transgression, no matter how slight. One out of every six Americans serving prison time today are in for nonviolent marijuana offenses. In some states, a felony conviction means your right to vote is rescinded forever. A president was impeached for lying about a blowjob in a civil case that had no right even being heard at that time. But today, thanks to Nancy Pelosi, who upon becoming Speaker of the House in 2007, declared herself to be George W. Bush's protector against impeachment, and Harry Reid, with his sternly worded statements with no teeth, and a bunch of venal, greedy cowards who inhabit the People's House, our elected officials, the people who long ago forgot that THEY work for US -- are no longer bound by the rule of law.

The flag for which generations of American boys have died was spat on today in the Senate -- defiled beyond recognition in a conflagration that dwarfs any protest by an irate citizen. Some of the same Senators who felt it so important to protect the flag that they would have voted for a Constitutional amendment to protect it, no longer think the Constitution is even relevant. They would protect the flag against one person trying to make a statement, but they won't protect it against an insane president and sixty-nine corrupt, craven Senators who have zero understanding of what the flag really means. It's not a cheap Chinese-made trinket to put on your lapel at election time in a display of faux-patriotism. It's not something to grandstand about when it's politically expedient. That flag stands for the document that the Senate defecated on today. The flag stands for the Great Experiment which has now irrevocably failed. Or at least it used to.

And the damnedest thing is that those sixty-nine Senators didn't even have the balls to set the damn thing aflame.