Obama's Range of Change

Originally published January 28, 2009

President Obama has promised that change is coming to the nation. Personally, I am not entirely sure how much change he means to bring. We all certainly expect that he will be different from Bush because he will actually use facts and logic in his decision making, but is that enough? Some other things are going to have to change to.

First off, President Obama must stop the treasury from constantly changing our money. This is probably one of the most pointless things our government does. Aside from the one dollar bill, every other bill has been changed dozens of times. The ten dollar bill has an orange tinge to it now for some reason and the five dollar bill has a purple five on it. I have to think that retooling the printing presses and making new engraving plates cost a lot of money. Believe it or not there is actually a congressional committee whose sole purpose is to come up with new ways to screw with our money. Remember those one dollar Sacagawea coins that were around for a while then just disappeared because nobody used them? Good one treasury subcommittee. These guys are elected officials who get paid by our tax dollars to sit in a room and think of new color schemes for money. Well I say no more.

The next thing that needs to be done is to stop declaring figurative wars on things that have always existed. The war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on terror, the war on crime. When we declare war on something we expect that eventually it will go away, but there will always be terrorism, poverty, and drugs. We can slow these things down but we will never eradicate them. So, President Obama, come up with a new term for trying to lessen these things. When we declare war on things that can’t be killed it just sounds stupid.

Lastly, a new approach towards foreign policy needs to be taken. To get nations like Iran and China to do what we want we have to utilize a tool that has been neglected in affairs of state. Tobacco. The Chinese and Middle Eastern people love to smoke. And they especially love to smoke American cigarettes because the tobacco they produce is inferior. Have you ever smelled a Chinese cigarette? It smells like burning hair. If we want Iran to stop it’s nuclear program or China to release political prisoners all we have to do is stop the cigarettes form coming in. Once they start going through nicotine withdrawal we can get them to do whatever we want.

It’s a bright new day for America. We’re not entirely sure exactly how Barack Obama will do as president yet, but we know he doesn’t have a tough act to follow.