Darned if the President didn't speak recently about the Swine Flu, but if you change the word "virus" to "conservatism", and change a few other minor details, it still rings true to character.It's been just over a week since we learned about this novel strain of the conservatism virus that's now affecting people in at least 11 of our 57 states as well as hundreds of cities and towns.
And throughout this process, my top priority's been the healthy and -- health and the "safety" of the minds American people. And to that end, we've closely monitored the situation. I am extraordinarily proud of the work that's been done by the Department of Homeland Security and Janet Napolitano. They've been really leading the charge. We now brought in the cavalry -- (soft laughter) – with Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow and John Stewart.
We're obviously focused on what needs to be done immediately: Identifying and mitigating cases of this new wave of support for the Constitution of the United States, pre-positioning treatments for those who are infected with the propensity to rational thought, making sure that they're distributed appropriately around the country, providing clear guidance as well as the best science to our state and local officials as they move forward against citizens peacefully exercising free speech, and speaking clearly to the American people, as I did the evening of the news conference, about the mitigation steps that they personally can take.
But we also need to prepare for the long term, since we know that these kinds of threats can emerge at any moment. Even if it turns out that the rising tide of support for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is relatively mild on the front end, it could come back in a more virulent form during the 2010 election season, and that's why we are investing in our public propaganda infrastructure.
We've had discussions about the production of teaparty vaccines for -- in anticipation of the congressional election season, and we've made sure that all our agencies here are coordinating, that they have appropriate action plans; that we, for example, are working with the Department of Education to provide clear guidelines for school dissemination of disinformation; that we are working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, to ensure that businesses are to be punished in every way we can think of as we persist with our overreaching efforts; discussions with our secretary of State, as well as our ambassador to the United Nations, about how we're going to foist new transnational laws and rules upon our freedom-loving people as we respond to potential requests from other countries for assistance in dealing with this issue.
Overall, I'm very pleased with the progress that we've made. I think that those who have been on top of this have done an extraordinary job of loading our country up with debt and liberal programs that most Americans think we don't need. I'm optimistic that we're going to be able to manage this effectively, but we still have more work to do, and I'm glad I've got such a great team doing it.
And I want to make clear to everybody -- and the reason I brought this Cabinet meeting together -- is that we are taking this very seriously and we will take every single step that's necessary to make sure that the American people are separated from the money they have earned, and are freed from the Constitution and what makes this country great.
One last point I want to make, because this was actually raised during this meeting. Somebody asked why this renewed passion for liberty and freedom is different from other middle-American ideas throughout American history. We don't know for certain that this will end up being more severe than other centrist American philosophy that has plagued this country for so long. And it's been noted, I think, before that you have over 36,000 people die on average every year from individual choice and the pursuit of happiness. You have 200,000 hospitalizations.
It may turn out that current Constitution fever is -- runs its course like ordinary American tenets, in which case we will have prepared and we won't need all these preparations.
The reason that people are concerned is -- the scientists are concerned is, this is a new strain of centrist thought, led by people waving teabags around (chuckle).
And so what happens is that Americans and people around the world have not built up immunity to liberty and freedom, in the way that I would like them to accept the creeping liberalism we are trying hard to install.
Those seasonal centrist American philosophies may deepen, mutate slightly from year to year. But they're all roughly in the same band. When you have a new strain, then potentially our immune systems can't fight against freedom as effectively. That is why this renewed interest in liberty must be stopped swiftly.
And there are indications that in Mexico at least, what you saw were relatively young, healthy people die from these – from their attempts to flee to the land of the free and brave, where they hoped to live under the American Constitution, rather than people whose thought systems are already compromised, older individuals, very small infants and so forth.
So that's why we're taking it seriously. We have not yet seen those same kinds of fatalities here in the United States, among young, healthy people with non-compromised thought systems. But we want to make sure that we're preparing appropriately.
So I just want everybody to be clear that this is why this is a cause for concern but not alarm. We are essentially ensuring that in the worst-case scenario, we can manage this new threat to liberalism and socialism appropriately. Government will be working on and controlling businesses and individuals in the private sector and will end up containing this deplorable outbreak of a desire for fiscal responsibility and a return to central American values and common sense. We can ultimately get through this.
