On military juntas

On military juntas

"What this country needs," says a commentard on our local newspaper, "is a spell under military rule. A bit of discipline would sort out these bally rioters and thieving bankers."

I dare say, after pressing "Enter", he turned to his long-suffering wife and said "That told 'em, what?"

So, military juntas, then. A military dictatorship might sound a fine idea in the short term. Crime would be stamped out, and I dare say that thieving bankers would be told not to do it again, and the short back-and-sides and shiny shoes would be enforceable by law as council house chavs will be forced to stop rutting like monkeys in a zoo for a bit of military service. Also, former colonels will turn to their long-suffering wives and say "That told 'em, what?"

But there is a big problem with military governments, and it is this:

FACT: The military are only really any good at one thing, and that is killing people to DEATH. At everything else, not so good. They can't even do their own shopping without spending £100million on a helicopter, or selling their own kids for a box of nails.

And you know exactly what's going to happen. They'll turn up on the first day of the nation's brave new dawn with "Military Communique No.1: Restoring Order and Fighting Crime on our streets", and there will be much rejoicing and smugly satisfied former colonels.

However, history shows us that military governments get rather used to the idea of power, and no matter how temporary they say they are, forty years down the line "Military Communique No. 37,957 On the re-education and re-assignment of counter-revolutionary street poets and revised penalties for breaking haircut regulations" is met with the kind of fixed-grin jubilation you only ever see on North Korean television broadcasts.

And that is why military governments are shit, and I have proved somebody on the internet to be WRONG.

I am not mad.