Rumor has it that Dick Cheney today will unveil a modest proposal to defeat international terrorism as the guest speaker to House Republicans at Republican National Committee headquarters.
It has been conjectured that Mr. Cheney’s idea originated and crystallized as follows. Twas a dark and stormy night when he perused a copy of Jonathan’s Swift’s A Modest Proposal. It advocates selling poor Irish children into the meat market at age 1 to pre-emptively attack problems of overpopulation, unemployment, poverty, and economic stagnation. Mr. Cheney became excited by Swift’s stone-hearted approach to attacking evils. Better to be the perpetrator of injustice than to risk adversity or danger.
Mr. Cheney reasoned that a possible first step to international terrorism is the ability to read and think. Those aptitudes could enable the planning and executions of new editions of 9/11. From those penetrating insights emerged Mr. Cheney’s modest proposal to destroy international terrorists in their pre-embryonic lives.
Every creature capable of reading or thinking should be given a choice between death and a lobotomy. In that way, international terrorists would be killed or incapacitated before waiting for possible evidence of guilt to surface.
The collateral advantages of the former vice president’s rumored modest proposal are obvious, many, and supremely important.
First, the harrowing danger of global warming would be instantly arrested. Greenhouse gas emissions would plunge as the worldwide population receded and the lobotomized living ceased driving or engaging in other energy-intensive amusements or activities.
Second, the number of persons without health insurance in the United States would tumble. Actuaries estimate that the percentage of the United States population that would opt for extermination over a lobotomy at 50 percent, or approximately 155 million. They further conjecture that 43 percent of the persons who choose death will lack health insurance. Accordingly, Mr. Cheney’s modest proposal would be expected to slash the rolls of the uninsured in the United States by 70 million—a success beyond the wildest dreams of Obamacare.
Third, the number of jobs in the United States and worldwide connected to lobotomies would surge with increased demand for surgery specialists and medical support personnel.
Fourth, the plunge in manpower would push wages into the stratosphere, thus putting an end to acrimonious political squabbles over minimum wages and overtime.
Although many other advantages might be mentioned, they must be omitted as a concession to the shortness of life.
In sum, there appears to be no possible objection against Mr. Cheney’s conjectured modest proposal. On second thought, maybe it too closely resembles the grisly thinking of our adversaries.
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