A Confederate Yankee
By Bill Mayers
So Lauren Boebert, owner of Shooters Grill in Rifle, Co., now packs heat on the job. So do all nine of her wait staff, toting large handguns slung on their hips while waiting tables. This has, as one might expect, drawn the half-wit crowd. But I gotta ask – what’cha gonna do, Mizz Boebert, when the gimmick wears thin? Have the girls go topless? Cuz it WILL wear thin.
One patron opines “I’m from Texas. This is normal.”
Well, no, it’s not. I’m from Oklahoma originally, and we had family in Texas whom we’d visit periodically. Texans do not walk the streets carrying firearms displayed prominently, unless they’re police officers on duty. They certainly do not prance into businesses armed to the teeth – not even restaurants.
Despite the fact that, in the past few months, a tiny number of certifiable crackpots have lurched, drooling over the attention, into a few hamburger joints or Target stores down in Texas with their assault-style weaponry, that behavior isn’t normal. The overwhelming majority of Texans find it abhorrent.
So once more, we must ask the Lauren Boeberts among us, what are you going to do when this little gimmick wears thin? And don’t tell us you worship Jesus rather than guns.
If you worshiped Jesus, there’d be Bibles in those holsters, not guns. You’d have napkins printed up with the Lord’s Prayer on them. You and your waitresses would have crosses on all y’alls’ name tags.
And you’d leave the artillery in a locked cabinet, out of sight of those who might be tempted to forcibly relieve you of ’em.
It’s symbolic, I think, of how American enterprise has sunk to a parody of itself. Shoddy. That’s a term that gained popularity during the Civil War, when unscrupulous businessmen sold clothing made from cloth that was, in turn, made from old rags. The cloth was so unsuitable that it’d actually disintegrate when the wearer went out in the rain, especially annoying when it was Union soldier’s uniforms made of shoddy that disintegrated as the troops marched along.
So many products are turning out shoddy that it’s become an embarrassment to talk about products made in America. Millions of cars recalled to fix a serious problem GM knew about for years. Hundreds and hundreds of deaths due to light aircraft crashes that the FAA and other regulatory agencies have found having occurred due to much the same thing: defective parts that the small aircraft industry has known about for decades – DECADES!
Investigatory agencies have found documents produced by the manufacturers themselves proving they know their product was defective. They have found former and current people in management in those manufacturers who admitted that, if it was a question between spending the money to fix a problem and letting you die, well, you’re gonna die, suckah!
Investigators have released formal reports of highway and railroad bridges being built with substandard parts, causing catastrophic failure of same. High-rise office buildings and living quarters, same thing.
And I know you’ve picked up an item of clothing you’re thinking of buying lately that has buttons missing, zippers that fail or seams that have not been sewn closed. I just recently shopped for new shoes and found two pair in the same store where the seam at the back of the shoe – the heel portion – had not been sewn properly, leaving a very visible gap.
What in the heck is happening to America, that so much of this crap is going on lately? Our marketable products are shoddy, our attitude towards firearms is irrational and our social interactions have dropped to the level of brute savages.
C’mon, people, what the hey?
William D. “Bill” Mayers RT, RN, of Sullivan is a retired senior U.S. Army Corpsman. A certified healthcare professional since 1964, he holds two professional licenses, including that of Registered Professional Nurse licensed in New York, Alaska, Virginia and Louisiana. He has four children, two stepchildren, three grandchildren and is an avid analyst of current events.