Usually, Austin Houston Crockett Bowie Bonham III stops by for a consultation whenever he’s here in Washington DC, but Friday afternoon, I got a telephone call from him instead. Gretchen’s voice had a distinct air of relief in it as she announced Austin’s call over the intercom, since he groped her pretty heavily during his last live appearance in her reception area outside my office. As it happened, I had a few minutes available to speak with him despite the fact that he didn’t have a formal appointment.
Tom: Austin?
Austin: Hi, Tom!
Tom: This is quite a surprise. You don’t call me all that often.
Austin: True, good buddy, but I can’t make it up to the ol’ Belly of the Beast at the moment. We folks down here in Texas got a whole passel of grief on our hands right now.
Tom: Really? I haven’t heard about any unusual floods, tornadoes, fires, or hordes of Mexicans or ISIS infiltrators down your way lately.
Austin: Oh, it’s worse than that stuff – although, speakin’ of ISIS and all, you know, we did get to pump some hot lead into a couple of towel-headed camel-[expletive]ing Osama-kissers over in Garland the other day.
Tom: So I hear. Looks like your fellow Texans lured them into pistol range with a “Draw a Cartoon of Mohammed” contest offering a ten thousand dollar first prize.
Austin: Hell, Tom – second, third, fourth and fifth prizes weren’t too shabby neither!
Tom: Worked like a charm, it seems.
Austin: Damned if it didn’t. And guess what – first prize was a cartoon of that there Mohammed [PASSAGE REDACTED – Editor 6, Friends of Tom Collins, 5/9/2015] What do you think of that?
Tom: I think it’s shallow, base, crass, tasteless, juvenile, ignorant, bigoted and extremely stupid. In addition, I find it highly offensive, not only to Islam, but also to world ecumenical understanding and comity between Christianity and virtually every other major faith.
Austin: It’s intended to be highly offensive to Islam and world… whatever you just said.
Tom: I’m sure it is. In short, it sounds to me like some classic Texan humor.
Austin: Haw! Ain’t that the truth!
Tom: Not very civilized or sophisticated though.
Austin: [Expletive]! You call flying two jet planes full of innocent people into the World Trade Center civilized? And what’s so [expletive] sophisticated about talking illiterate children into getting injected with HIV, strapping on a suicide vest full of buckshot, broken glass, rusty nails and high explosives and blowing themselves up in the middle of a Saturday afternoon shopping crowd, huh?
Tom: That’s not what I meant. The fact is, true Moslems consider things like that to be the worst, most inexcusable sins and the greatest possible offense to Allah. And nearly all Moslems in the United States believe in the First Amendment and would never even imagine behaving like those madmen who attacked the Curtis Culwell Center. They are, if anything, even more shocked and horrified than the average American.
Austin: Really? Well, they better buckle their [expletive] seat belts, good buddy, ’cause we figure we’re gonna have contests like that all over Texas and enjoy us a nice turkey shoot outside the exhibit hall every [expletive] time the jihadis come gunning for us.
Tom: Quite the strategy. Unless the jihadis hijack some Texas oil baron’s private jet and fly it straight down into the roof or something.
Austin: Actually, we already thought about that. From now on, the Texas Air National Guard’s gonna provide jet fighter cover for all future “Draw a Cartoon of Mohammed” contests. Commies, homos, jihadis, [expletive]-lovers, what have you, down here in Texas, we know what to do – shoot ’em on sight!
Tom: You mean, you’re really going to hold “Draw a Cartoon of Mohammed” contests with fat cash prizes in order to attract enraged Moslems so you can blow their brains out when they try to kill you for insulting the Blessed Prophet Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Him?
Austin: You bet your sushi-snarfing, French-wine-drinking, opera-going, handmade Italian shoe-wearing, New York Times-reading, PBS-watching, art-gallery-loving, five-hundred-page-book-reading, global-warming-believing, inside-the-Beltway secular humanist [expletive], Tom Collins Martini!
Tom: So I guess the message there is, Don’t Mess With Texas – Unless We Invite You To.
Austin: More or less, yeah.
Tom: Interesting. So what can I do for you today?
Austin: Well, it’s that there God damned Operation Jade Helm. Heard about it, I guess?
Tom: Oh, sure. What about it?
Austin: What do you mean, what about it? That there [expletive] Socialist mulatto Antichrist in the [expletive] White House is drawing up [expletive] maps of Texas marked “Enemy Territory” and giving them to the [expletive] Pentagon!
Tom: Um… I think your alleged theory of cartographic provenance may be somewhat inaccurate there, good buddy.
Austin: Listen, partner, don’t be talking out of school, okay? Y’all get the Internet up there in Washington DC? Yes, as a matter of fact, I know you do, so go have a look – there’s a whole [expletive] load of places you could go to get the real facts about this situation we’re dealing with down here in the Lone Star State. And, I might add, a couple hundred radio talk shows with reputations for unimpeachable integrity! And not to mention ol’ Greg Abbott, no less!
Tom: Ah yes… Governor Greg Abbot, geopolitical genius extraordinaire.
Austin: Yeah, him! And you’re right – he’s definitely a geo…. geo… uh, some kind of genius for figuring out what Obama’s been up to! You did hear that he called on the Texas State Guard to monitor the actions of the US military down here, didn’t you?
Tom: I did, and so have all the governments of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Pacific. I bet even the Prime Minister of Penguins in Antarctica has been duly informed. And based on what I’ve heard from them about it, good buddy, they are all wondering what’s wrong with you folks down there in Texas – holding events engineered to antagonize unstable religious fanatics, then shooting them; denouncing your federal government’s legitimate, carefully planned and duly announced military training exercises as some kind of invasion; construing military training exercise maps as evidence of a secret declaration of war on Texas; and your governor calling on your state militia to confront the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Tell me, Austin, is there something in the water down there in Texas, or have you all been smoking Pecos loco weed thinking it was Arkansas rabbit tobacco?
Austin: Scoff all you want, my friend, because I can hear you now – “First the BATF came for the Branch Davidians, and I did nothing, because I was not a Seventh Day Adventist. Then the Army came for the Texans, and I did nothing, because I was not a Texan. Then the Department of Homeland Security came to take the Texan’s guns, but I did nothing, because I was not a gun owner…”
Tom: Actually, I do own a gun. Several, in fact. I live in Virginia, don’t forget.
Austin: You live in Northern Virginia, which every true Virginia boy knows, don’t count. Anyhow, in spite of that, you know what I’m talking about – the roots of the Tree of Liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Tom: Wait… what’s that? I think it’s the sound of Thomas Jefferson spinning in his grave. Heavens to Betsy, Austin, it’s making such a racket I can hear it all the way from Monticello over there in Charlottesville.
Austin: Now hold on just a consarned minute! Are you getting… sarcastic with me, good buddy?
Tom: Ironic is more like it. Come on, Austin, give me a break – I know you’re somewhat to the right of George Armstrong Custer, but…
Austin: Custer? Custer was a damned Yankee! If I’m to the right of anybody who fought in the War of Northern Aggression and ever held the rank of General, then by Jesus Christ’s bleeding [expletive], it’s gonna be John Bell Hood!
Tom: All right, sure… I know you’re somewhat to the right of John Bell Hood, then, but get a grip, okay? Like, what – half, maybe, of the people in the US Military are from the South. They were born and raised in the very places you and your cronies are freaking out about, thinking the federal government is going to fake some kind of crisis while Operation Jade Helm is going on and use that as an excuse to take over. Do you really think a lieutenant colonel who was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas isn’t going to realize that an order from the Pentagon to invade his home town is illegal?
Austin: They’ve thought about that! They’re sending all the Texans in the Navy out to sea and transferring all the Texans in the Army and the Marines to long tours of duty in Afghanistan and South Korea, and assigning all the Texan pilots in the Air Force to desk jobs!
Tom: Really? Where did you hear that?
Austin: Just about everywhere I go! This Obama invasion is just about all anybody’s talking about down here!
Tom: All I can say about that is, my sainted grandmother told me never to discuss sex, religion or violent paranoid fantasies in polite company. Have you folks down there in Texas forgotten your manners?
Austin: What about Chuck Norris?
Tom: Okay, what about him?
Austin: He’s spoken out, that’s what! He’s announced his concern about Operation Jade Helm! He’s backed up governor Abbott – he thinks calling out the Texas State Guard was the right thing to do! He’s called for transparency from the federal government about what they’re actually up to with this so-called “training exercise,” too. And he’s had the guts to come out and say that it’s more than coincidental that the FBI, CIA and DHS let ISIS operatives attack that cartoon contest in Garland.
Tom: And what makes you think Chuck Norris isn’t just spouting out right wing lunatic fringe rumors like some kind of demented parrot?
Austin: The man has a tenth-degree black belt in kung fu!
Tom: Eighth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do karate.
Austin: Whatever! Close enough! He’s a movie star!
Tom: So’s Benedict Cumberbatch. Does that mean, if he said we’re being invaded by zombies from Alpha Centauri, I should believe him?
Austin: What does what’s-his-name… this Benedict Cumberbatch guy… know about zombies from outer space?
Tom: What does Chuck Norris know about how the Pentagon conducts tri-service integrated military exercises?
Austin: A hell of a lot more than Benedict Cumberbatch knows about astronomy, I bet!
Tom: Actually, you might be surprised by how much Benedict Cumberbatch knows about astronomy.
Austin: Well, anyway, Chuck Norris reminded everybody that Benjamin Franklin said, “Distrust and caution are the parents of security,” and you don’t have to be a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to understand that! You going to tell me you hear ol’ Ben Franklin spinning in his grave about that?
Tom: Ben Franklin was far too lazy to even turn over in his grave, much less spin in it. And there’s a difference between distrust and caution on the one hand versus hysteria and paranoia on the other. I’m sure Ben Franklin would have known the difference – what I can’t understand is why you don’t.
Austin: Stop tryin’ to confuse me with a bunch of straw man, slippery slope false analogies between apples and oranges, Tom. Not everybody with a Southern accent is a idiot, you know. How about Louis Gohmert, huh?
Tom: Representative Gohmert?
Austin: Yeah. He knows what Obama said about us – that we “cling to guns and religion” and that somethin’ outta be done about us, like we’re some kind of national problem like then [expletive] on welfare burnin’ down Baltimore – not that most Texans don’t think that burnin’ down Baltimore would be all that bad of an idea, mind you. He’s the one who blew the whistle on the Pentagon when he saw them maps marked “enemy territory,” “permissive states” and “uncertain territories” and all. And then there’s Ted Cruz…
Tom: I’ve heard that, truth be known, he’s not all that convinced about your conspiracy theories.
Austin: Well it sure as hell ain’t like he’s come out and said in public he believes all that horse [expletive] the Pentagon is shoveling, now has he? As a matter of fact, he’s stated that he doesn’t consider the Obama administration trustworthy, I know that much for sure. And he said that for the last six years, Obama’s been disrespecting the liberty of US citizens and spreading fear and uncertainty and attacking free speech, favoring Sharia Law and trampling all over our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms!
Tom: Tom Cruz is a Republican running for President of the United States, Austin. He’s more or less obligated to say things like that if he wants to win in the Republican primaries. You know that.
Austin: And I hope he wins it, too. Then there’s Rick Perry…
Tom: You’ve got to be kidding. As former governor of Texas, he came out publicly in statements to the press saying that it’s inappropriate and downright wrong to question the US military. And if there’s one thing I’m certain that you, me, Rick Perry and Barack Obama agree on, it’s that the United States of America has the finest, most disciplined and loyal military in the world, if not, in fact, the entire history of the human race.
Austin: Aw hell, Tom, you, me, Rick Perry and Barack Obama all put our pants on one leg at a time, too, but that don’t mean you and Obama can tree a possum, or that me and Rick Perry sit next to bisexuals at Maya Angelou poetry recitals, now does it?
Tom: Well, Representative Mac Thornberry is a genuine Texan, straight from the Panhandle, and he’s gone on record as saying that if there were, in fact, some kind of great conspiracy to take over the country, the last place that conspiracy would want to start is Texas.
Austin: Yeah? Well how about David Dewhurst?
Tom: Excuse me? Who?
Austin: David Dewhurst. He used to be Lieutenant Governor of Texas, and… um…Texas Land Commissioner, too. And he agrees with Greg Abbott. What’s more, he once worked for the CIA, so when it comes to covert stuff like disguising invasions as military exercises, he really knows his stuff!
Tom: Okay, good buddy, it’s useless to argue with reasoning like that, so let’s say you’re right – then what?
Austin: Oh… alright then, what I need to know is – when this “military exercise” turns into a takeover attempt, how can we stop it?
Tom: Practically speaking, there’s no way the state of Texas could defeat or even repel any determined effort by the United States military to take it over and impose martial law.
Austin: We could damn well slow it down!
Tom: For a day or two, maybe, if you were willing do some some serious dying. But what would be the point? How long do you think the Danes fought back when Germany invaded Denmark in April of 1940?
Austin: I… well, I guess I don’t rightly know.
Tom: Six hours. Know how many Danish casualties there were?
Austin: Nope.
Tom: Twenty-six dead, twenty-three wounded.
Austin: What the [expletive]? Hell, we had more than that down here in Texas the night the Dallas Cowboys put on them damned jinxed blue jerseys and lost Super Bowl V!
Tom: I have no trouble believing you. But my point is, if Obama uses Operation Jade Helm to take over Texas and declare martial law, it wouldn’t make any sense for Texans to fight back. The smart thing to do would be to engage in a campaign of passive resistance.
Austin: Passive resistance? Are you out of your biscotti-munchin’, chablis-sippin’, foie gras eatin’…
Tom: These days, we politically correct liberals here inside the Beltway eat monkfish liver instead of foie gras.
Austin: Monkfish liver? What the hell is a monkfish?
Tom: An extremely ugly fish, actually. They used to be called “sea devils” and “frog fish,” in fact, and nobody would eat them. But in the early 1990s, some trendy chefs in New York discovered that their meat tastes like lobster and in the last couple of years somebody similar noticed that their liver tastes like foie gras. So looks aren’t everything, I guess. You were saying?
Austin: I was sayin’ you’re out of your mind if you think you can use the words “passive” and “Texans” in the same sentence!
Tom: Sorry, but if Operation Jade Helm really is an Obama administration plot to invade Texas, declare martial law and start confiscating firearms, passive resistance is the only sensible and pragmatic strategy.
Austin: Oh yeah? How ’bout we organize a guerrilla resistance, like the partisans in Red Dawn, huh? How ’bout that?
Tom: I must admit, that would be considerably more entertaining to watch on television, but it would be highly costly to the people of Texas. Don’t forget – if what you are alleging is really true, then President Barack “Antichrist” Obama is going to have spy satellites, state-of-the-art NSA communications surveillance, and armed drones, not to mention Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, hordes of blackhawk helicopters, tanks, artillery, fighter jets, B2 stealth bombers and well, not to put too fine a point on it, nuclear weapons at his disposal. Now, I know the average Texan owns four handguns, two shotguns, three hunting rifles and at least one semi-automatic weapon that can be converted to fully automatic fire in less than thirty minutes, plus enough ammunition to kill approximately nine hundred people, but when a C-130 drops a BLU-82B Daisy Cutter fuel air bomb on your Texan guerrilla resistance headquarters hideout, the remains aren’t going to be distinguishable from the crispy critters that were left over after we dropped one of those suckers on the Taliban at Tora Bora back in 2001.
Austin: We… did that?
Tom: It’s classified. So don’t go around telling everybody, okay?
Austin: But… but… wouldn’t they need a warrant or something? Probable cause and all that [expletive] the spics and the [expletive] get all the time, every day?
Tom: Not if martial law has been declared, Washington has ordered confiscation of all firearms for the duration and you guys are out there shooting at United States military forces. In that case, you’re in open rebellion and you would not be essentially different from enemy combatants on the battlefields of Helmand Province. So listen, good buddy, with respect to any plans Texans may have to fight back against Jade Helm, well, as they say in Little Italy, my old neighborhood where I grew up, forget about it, it ain’t gonna happen. Passive resistance is the only viable strategy to defeat a military takeover of Texas by the Obama administration.
Austin: You mean, we all gotta start actin’ like that there Mahatma Gandhi feller?
Tom: Well, yeah, him and Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Václav Havel, Lech Wałęsa, Andrei Sakharov, and the Right Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Austin: Martin Luther King?
Tom: Well, yeah… you did know he was an avid follower of Gandhi and Thoreau, didn’t…
Austin: HUWALP!
Tom: Excuse me? Austin? Austin? Austin… are you all right?
Voice: Who the hell is this?
Tom: This is Tom Collins. Who’s…
Voice: This here’s Austin’s wife, Bluebonnet Houston Crockett Bowie Bonham III! You that eggheaded, effete East Coast intellectual Austin visits when he’s up there in Washington DC?
Tom: Uh, well… yes, I suppose I am.
Bluebonnet: What in tarnation have you been talkin’ to my husband about?
Tom: Operation Jade Helm.
Bluebonnet: Operation Jade what?
Tom: Jade Helm. I’m sure your husband can explain, ma’am.
Bluebonnet: Not while he’s puking his guts up all over the living room, including my genuine 1853 antique Navajo rug! Whatever did you say to him? And why did you call him up in he first place?
Tom: He called me, ma’am, and as for our conversation just now, I simply suggested that if Obama orders the military to take over Texas and impose martial law, the best thing for Texans would be for them to engage in non-violent resistance.
Bluebonnet: Non-violent resistance?
Tom: Correct.
Bluebonnet: Now I’m gonna be sick. Look, Mr. Highball…
Tom: Collins. Tom Collins…
Bluebonnet: Yeah, whatever, Mr. Collins… I gotta hang up now, okay?
Tom: Why certainly, I understand completely and… hello? Hello?