Let the pogrom begin!

There is a town in California that has finally taken action on this vitally important issue of humans sucking liquid from cups through plastic straws.

Given the clear and present existential threat these plastic straws pose to all of humankind, it was only prudent that the City Council of Santa Barbara pass a law threatening jail time for bloodthirsty straw merchants who insist upon peddling these vile weapons against humanity.

One member of the Santa Barbara City Council voted against the measure, raising serious questions about what kind of hateful monster could get elected to the city council and stand athwart history’s arc toward justice. Is there not some kind of retroactive law that could sentence to death by hanging any city council member who voted against jailing people for using plastic straws?

But, really, who are we kidding? Do we really want to stand around and let this perilous scourge of plastic straws crack the planet in half or do we want to do something about it?

Why throw straw merchants into jail? There they will probably join some lawsuit claiming that sucking liquid through plastic straws is part of their religion.

The runaway courts of the Ninth Circuit (generally known as the Ninth Circus) will surely rule in their favor and require the state of California to provide unlimited plastic straws to the imprisoned straw merchants for their liquid-sucking religious ceremonies.

Even more alarming is that the new law only throws these straw merchants into jail “for a term not exceeding six (6) months.”

What happens after six months?

Do you think these evil vermin can be just returned to a society where, surely, they will once again take up lethal arms against humankind? And do you think for one minute that these villains won’t just be emboldened once they are not only released but granted special status by the Ninth Circuit to continue their plastic straw sucking religious ceremonies?

Soon, they will be out recruiting and converting people to their new “religion.” More like a cult!

If we are really serious about doing something to save all of humankind and the planet, we must get serious about how we punish the people so hellbent on killing off the species and destroying the planet.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. What we have on our hands right now is nothing short of a mutiny on a very large, fragile asteroid hurtling through space.

And everybody knows the only way to put down a mutiny on an asteroid is to kill every last mutineer, right?

Those soda-swigging, straw-slurping planet-killers need to pay.

• Charles Hurt can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com; follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt.