The most important four letter word in America is like, well, like a word that enables conversation to take place, like, among a vary large segment of the population. Without this word, the average person would, like, need a much more extensive vocabulary and, like, an actual understanding of exactly how to put real sentences together. This word has become the essential anchor of our language, nowhere more apparent than, like, where celebrities gather — like on television talk shows and sitcoms. Like, this word is especially necessary to females — say ages 10-40 — roughly 90 million ladies. You recently had occasion to overhear three coeds, like, attempting to describe and discuss an event they witnessed; and in a matter of, like, no more than, like, a minute, this vital word was uttered no less than 50 times. What you are unable to grasp is how this exceptional word escaped the attention of no less stalwart figures than Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and, like, other superstars of history. Incredibly, like neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Gettysburg Address contains a single mention. Not one. As celebrated as these documents may be, you are, like, perplexed how the brightest minds could, like, have ignored a uniquely American expression — one that could have enlivened these rather plodding compositions. With over 200 years of progress and with the benefit of America’s stellar pubic education system, today’s young minds might offer these improvements: “We , like, hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are, like, created equal, that they are, like, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are, like, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” At the cemetery in Gettysburg, Pa., we can only imagine the outpouring of praise, had Abe declared: “. . . that from these honored dead we, like, take increased devotion to that cause for which they, like, gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died, like, in vain — that this nation, like, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not, like, perish from the earth.” To be fair, America’s most dominant four letter word is almost exclusively spoken, not written. Without it, basic communication would, like, be in peril. Talk shows might just become obsolete. An eerie silence would, like, settle over cities and plains, like  chloroform. Not to worry, though. Like this valuable word is not only here to stay, but also flourishing. Like who needs a vocabulary, anyway?

You should understand by now, with all due respect to every religious belief, that the meaning of life and death has escaped exactly 100% of all human beings since the dawn of civilization. That rather infinite statistic should persuade you to escape your foolishness in pondering the unknowable or in imagining the unimaginable. As a typical human of standard intellect, you of course ignore this wisdom as did both your scholarly and dull-witted predecessors. After all, this obsessively inquisitive behavior is  integral to the human genetic code — no less instinctive than the migration of the humpback whale. In fact, this very analytic exercise is like plowing over already tilled soil. But you do it anyway, as if expecting your Maker to allow you and you alone — access to the inaccessible — essentially to occupy a god-like status. How silly. Utterly. Fret not and forgive yourself this rote behavior, because cognition is a uniquely human gift, or curse, depending on your circumstance. Monks, nuns and other clerics make a career out of this sort of resolute mulling. Some, as you would expect, investigate and pore over ancient scrolls thought to be divinely inspired and divinely written by human hand. In pulpits throughout the land, professional theologians go so far as to interpret the divine writings of saintly authors, and even feel compelled to pronounce, with official certainty, what God actually thinks, asks, sees, and  needs — what in fact He wants you to do and think — today. These churchly affirmations seem a bit presumptuous but no doubt are sincere, born out of scriptural study and no small amount of historical evidence — testimony that the devout accept as gospel. This attention to spiritual thought is paramount because your Life Force can’t accommodate the thought of Nothingness, can it? Yet, if Death offers a “peace that passeth all understanding,” why is Life itself precious beyond all else and protected at all cost? And so you come full circle, like a hamster doggedly exercising his wire wheel. Your only excuse for this barren meditation, beyond some mental dysfunction, is an abnormal obsession with injustice. You can rationalize the natural selection of natural disaster and the dark destiny of self-directed human folly. But you have zero capacity for sociopaths who inflict suffering and death; or for afflictions that steal childhood; or political evil and treachery that oppress and persecute millions. No, with all due respect to heavenly redemption, you will never rationalize earthly injustice — the countless examples of unspeakable atrocity — the common examples of unrelenting theft. Since there’s no way out of this incessant brooding, you clearly must wait your turn in line to learn the final answers; and when you do, you may find yourself singing the last verse of a favorite Peggy Lee tune:

I know what you must be saying to yourselves
If that’s the way (he) feels about it
Then why doesn’t (he) just end it all;
Oh no. not me. I’m not ready for the final disappointment,
‘Cause I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you
That when that final moment comes
And I’m breathing my last breath
I know what I’ll be saying to myself
” Is that all there is ? “

Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is.

Our neighbors in the North Country have a birds-eye view of the American Soap Opera. There’s no sitcom more astonishing, more preposterous. One of our Canadian friends made some trenchant observations about the loony bin to his South, inferring that “Only In America” — a nation of incalculable accomplishment — could people behave like real-life actors in The Walking Dead. With apologies to this anonymous author for a paraphrase here and there:

♦Only in America do some politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000 a plate campaign fund-raising event.

♦Only in America do some people claim discrimination against black Americans when black Americans have a black President, a black Attorney General and a roughly 18% black federal workforce — while only 12% of the population is black.
♦Only in America could the two men most responsible for the nation’s tax code — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and former Ways and Means Congressman Charles Rangel — be outright tax cheats — both in favor of higher taxes.
♦Only in America do Muslim terrorists kill people in the name of Allah, and see the mainstream media react by complaining about a Muslim backlash.
♦Only in America do honest people  wait years and pay thousands for the privilege of becoming immigrants — while people who sneak into the country illegally ‘magically’ become American citizens.
♦Only in America could people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country’s Constitution be thought of as hardcore extremists.
♦Only in America do you need  a driver’s license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.
♦Only in America do people demand to investigate whether oil companies gouge the public over  gas prices, when the return on equity of a major company (Marathon Oil) is less than 1/2 the return of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).
♦Only in America does the government collect more tax dollars than any other nation in recorded history, yet still spends a trillion dollars more than it receives, for total annual spending of $7 million per minute; then complain it doesn’t have nearly enough money.
♦Only in America could the most productive people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying their “fair share” by the country’s President and by the people who pay no income taxes at all.

Meanwhile, as the inmate in Washington rules the Cuckoo Nest, you learn that U. S. welfare spending has mushroomed from $563 billion in fiscal 2008 to $746 billion in fiscal 2011, a prodigious leap of 32 percent.* This amount is more than Social Security, basic defense spending or any other single chunk of the federal government. You and your neighbor to the north are now witnessing a real life example of “killing the goose that lays the golden egg” — American style.

Epilogue: A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. G. Shaw

*Congressional Research Service.