It vill not be difficult, mein Führer…

Michael Chertoff, the top creep at the Comittee of Public Safety, thinks that you and I are not sacrificing enough for our own good. And it’s getting on his very last nerve:

Such opposition [to new border control programs] ranges from Texas ranchers who don’t want border fences built on their property to northern border-state residents who don’t want to get passports to cross back-and-forth between Canada and the USA. Chertoff says he is frustrated by the growing number of people who say, Yes, protect us, but not if it inconveniences me.

But don’t worry. Chertoff will make sure the government protects the hell out of you, anyway. And you’re going to like it, too.

In an interview shortly before the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Chertoff said he considers it one of his biggest obligations in his remaining 16 months in office to eliminate the not-in-my-backyard attitude when it comes to relatively small costs and inconveniences.

And don’t you worry. Michael Chertoff will find that all the costs and inconveniences of national identification papers, a border wall, new passport requirements, deliberate intimidation of employers by La Migra, etc. are relatively small.

Tim Roemer, a member of the 9/11 Commission, said President Bush should help Chertoff better inform the public about new security programs designed to keep terrorists out of the country.

The average citizen needs to know more about what to do to stop these people, Roemer said.

Chertoff says he worries that the public is suffering fatigue after six years of counterterrorism efforts abroad and at home.

—USA Today (2007-09-06): Chertoff: Security requires sacrifice

And there’ll be no security fatigue in Chertoff’s command—that’s an order. You’d better fall in, soldier.

Perhaps if the people who are actually affected by the costs and inconveniences Michael Chertoff’s so-called security policies are not as enthusiastic as Michael Chertoff is about those policies, he should reconsider his efforts to protect them against their will.

(Story thanks to Wolfesblog 2007-09-06: Chertoff says we’re not sacrificing enough.)

Further reading:

• GT 2006-12-04: In five words or fewer #2: Michael McHale on the 50-shot police murder of Sean Bell
• GT 2006-05-11: Quidditative essence