Read it and weep!!

[Big N' Blue]

Thanksgiving 2022 (UNCLASSIFIED)

"Winston, come into the dining room, it's time to eat," Julia yelled to her
husband. "In a minute, honey, it's a tie score," he answered. Actually
Winston wasn't very interested in the traditional holiday football game
between Detroit and Washington .

Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017,
outlawing tackle football for its "unseemly violence" and the "bad example it
sets for the rest of the world," Winston was far less of a football fan than
he used to be. Two-hand touch wasn't nearly as exciting.

Yet it wasn't the game that Winston was uninterested in.. It was more the
thought of eating another TofuTurkey. Even though it was the best type of
VeggieMeat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity
Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of Federally forbidden foods, (which
already included potatoes, cranberry sauce and mince-meat pie), it wasn't
anything like real turkey. And ever since the government officially changed
the name of "Thanksgiving Day" to "A National Day of Atonement" in 2020 to
officially acknowledge the Pilgrims' historically brutal treatment of Native
Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.

Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of
government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the TofuTurkey look even
weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold. Ever since
Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all
thermostats-which were monitored and controlled by the electric company-be
kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely
tolerable throughout the entire winter.

Still, it was good getting together with family. Or at least most of the
family. Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had
used up her legal allotment of live-saving medical treatment. He had had many
heated conversations with the Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the
private insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone was forced into
the government health care program. And though he demanded she be kept on her
treatment, it was a futile effort. "The RHC's resources are limited,"
explained the government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the phone. "Your
mother received all the benefits to which she was entitled. I'm sorry for
your loss."

Ed couldn't make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last
night, the only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of 2021
outlawed the use of the combustion engines-for everyone but government
officials. The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and Ed
didn't want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here and
there.

Thankfully, Winston's brother, John, and his wife were flying in. Winston
made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion. No
one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after
the government-mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely
aggravated his hemorrhoids. Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a
cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added "inconvenience"
was an "absolute necessity" in order to stay "one step ahead of the
terrorists." Winston's own body had grown accustomed to such probing ever
since the government expanded their scope to just about anywhere a crowd
gathered, via Anti-Profiling Act of 2022. That law made it a crime to single
out any group or individual for "unequal scrutiny," even when probable cause
was involved. Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus depots,
etc., etc., had become almost routine. Almost.

The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court
composed of six progressives and three conservatives to leave the law intact.
"A living Constitution is extremely flexible," said the Court's eldest
member, Elena Kagan. " Europe has had laws like this one for years. We should
learn from their example," she added.

Winston's thoughts turned to his own children. He got along fairly well with
his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him. Winston
had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time,
even during Atonement Dinner. Their only real
confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month,
explaining that was all he could afford. She whined for a week, but got over
it.

His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether. Perhaps it was the
constant bombarding he got in public school that global warming, the bird
flu, terrorism or any of a number of other calamities were "just around the
corner," but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic attitude that ranged
between simmering surliness and outright hostility. It didn't help that Jason
had reported his father to the police for smoking a cigarette in the house,
an act made criminal by the Smoking Control Statute of 2018, which outlawed
smoking anywhere within 500 feet of another human being. Winston paid the
$5,000 fine, which might have been considered excessive before the American
dollar became virtually worthless as a result of QE13. The latest round of
quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to
"spur economic growth." This time they promised to push unemployment below
its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.

Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before
remembering it was a Day of Atonement. At least he had his memories. He felt
a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life
was like in the Good Old Days, long before government promises to make life
"fair for everyone" realized their full potential. Winston, like so many of
his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they
didn't happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get used to
them.

He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there
was still time, maybe back around 2011, when all the real nonsense began.
"Maybe we wouldn't be where we are today if we'd just said 'enough is enough'
when we had the chance," he thought.

Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable…… George Orwell

[dwalton]

Welcome to the future ruled by the government and for the government. Let the government take care of us they know what's best, just ask them. Dewey

[Curtis Wilcox]

Well now its the LAW.YOU know the will of the people!Ol'Curt

[timothy]

Careful the kings men .. uh humm Feds will be coming after you soon for treason.

[livetohunt]

Now Now Now, He told us all CHANGE vote for CHANGE and we sure got it. What scares me the most is just how far will all this CHANGE go.

[timothy]

Now Now Now, He told us all CHANGE vote for CHANGE and we sure got it. What scares me the most is just how far will all this CHANGE go.

I wish I could make "change" last as long as he has.

[Big N' Blue]

If you put the federal goverment in charge of the Sahara desert, in 5 years or less you would have a shortage of sand!!