Cancer. Some Things You Can Do.

Most everyone I know well, including some folks I'd just as soon disown, are aware of the fact that I've recently begun treatments for metastasis of the cancer I had diagnosed and treated 3 years ago.  I have avoided airing those personal details in this public space, because I don't want to sound like I'm pining for anyone's sympathy.  Fact of the matter is though, the way I look at it: I'm luckier than any of you folks...I get to kick cancer's ass a second time.  The chest-thumping factor is, as Kramer would say, "off the charts, Jerry, off the charts!"

Be that as it may, there'll probably be at least a third and fourth time, many years from now.  And I have a point to make, so listen up.

In the first go-'round, I lost my job, my Corvette, a salivary gland, a sizable portion of beard, and most everything else I owned.  This time they've already spill't enough blood to float a small farm animal, and will soon claim a few sections of both lungs.  But, and I'm being 100% sincere, it's a minor setback.

My high school football coach just called me yesterday, and asked what he and our church could do for me.  I received the question as if to mean, what could they do to benefit me?  And answered that, besides their continued prayers, there was nothing I needed.  But there is one thing I wish I'd have requested, which will benefit far more than just me, and I may call him back.

I wish I'd have told him that the cancer that is inside me is not remotely as threatening to my life and what I value than the cancer that has grown unchecked around me, and which continues devouring healthy tissue.  Around, and amongst, all of us.  I am writing of the pervasive, intrusive, constricting, and malignant cancer that is statism, and all its forms.  All the greatest civilizations known to have existed, rolled into one, can't hold a candle to what the Founding Fathers established.  And while our economy chokes from the tumor squeezing its windpipe and our national security teeters precariously from the tumor rotting its brain, our elected representatives had no qualms in turning to funny boy Stephen Colbert for a little levity on the subject of illegal immigration.  Talk about fiddling while the shining city burns.

The Presidential administration sees fit to invest in offshore drilling to benefit Brazil, but simultaneously continue their moratorium on drilling in the Gulf.  That's 40,000 American jobs outsourced to Brazil, not by an employer trying to escape onerous regulation and taxation, but by the guy who gets wee-wee'd up at the notion of American exceptionalism.  The justice department (in an effort to assert and solidify federal authority) manages to fight against one state's attempts to stop illegal immigration, but can't justify an effort to investigate and prosecute blatant voter intimidation.  That is, the federal government will fight hard to protect its own power, but won't lift a finger to help fight for yours.

Banks that accepted "stimulus" funds but decided to repay them have been refused that option, presumably because the administration prefers having the control to having the cash.  This latest law to loan money to businesses contains such conditions that make it nothing but a trojan horse into those businesses to inject more governmental control.

Every new law and regulation and unvetted czar and Supreme Court nominee, that we've gotten from this President and this Democrat-controlled Congress and this Democrat-controlled Senate is consistent, not with an effort to engender Liberty for Americans, but an effort to destroy or pervert Liberty in the name of a more-collossal and controlling government.

Dear Coach,

Yes, there are a few things you can do, just for me:  Vote Republican.  Endorse and support the Tea Party movement.  Criticize governmental malfeasance and ineptitude.  Demand honesty and accountability from the national media.  Vote Republican.  Fight to abolish the income tax in favor of a flat sales tax.  Rage against Socialism, in all its forms.  Combat disinformation by the liberal media, and popular culture.  Vote Republican.

All of us will eventually die.  Some folks never really live, and that's the sad part.  I told one person that you wouldn't wish my condition on anyone, but if you had to, you'd wish it on the meanest, toughest, son-of-a-bitch you'd ever met.

Round # 2 for me with ACC, and I'm bringin' the hammers.

Help me win the fight against the more-sinister cancer: statism.  And we'll all win.

Thanks for the help.  Hey cancer, fill yer hands, you sonofabitch.