“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave . . .” from Hotel California by The Eagles.
Today E. J. Dionne, of The Washington Post, made a joke on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Dionne suggested that since California is about to go bankrupt, it would be a great place to relocate the terrorist prisoners from Gitmo.
I had to laugh. Just earlier this morning I came to the same conclusion, but not jokingly. If Gitmo must close, why not build a new Terrorist Only prison in California? After all, if California is looking to the federal government (that’s you and me) for a bailout, wouldn’t they want to sweeten the pot?
California is a perfect place for terrorist relocation.
· Warm sunny climate
· Residents eager to accept illegal invasions of any kind
· Voters who feel the need to provide a luxurious and nurturing environment for hardened terrorists
· Desperate hedonistic state that now needs our money
According to a Wikipedia interpretation of Hotel California it’s the perfect place and the perfect name for a new Terrorist Only prison:
The song's lyrics describe the title establishment as a luxury resort where "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." On the surface, the song tells the tale of a weary traveler who becomes trapped in a nightmarish luxury hotel that at first appeared inviting and tempting. The song is generally understood to be an allegory about hedonism and self-destruction in the Southern California music industry of the late 1970s; Don Henley called it "our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles[5] and later reiterated "[i]t's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about."[6]