“SMARTER THAN THE GOVERNMENT”
by OPOVV, ©2019
(Sep. 19, 2019) — “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another pleasing episode of ‘The Pulse of the Nation,’ the place where informed people go to stay informed. Hello, I’m your Roving Reporter (RR) with our good friend and longtime contributor, Professor Zorkophsky, here in his rather nice office at the university. Welcome to the show, Professor, and what have you got to show us that’s new?”
“Please, Roving, call me ‘Zork’ as long as we’re here in my relaxing office. Thank you for coming on such short notice, by the way. See this? What do you think of it?”
“Pretty darn impressive, is what I think, but what is it?”
“It’s a ‘Do Over,’ is what it is. Look, I’ll show you. This is a copy of one of my best-sellers that didn’t sell, so I’ll place it on this tray, push this button, and out the other end is the finished product, see?”
“So it’s the same book but retitled?”
“And I can do the same with film, too. Look, I’ll place these reels on the tray, push the button, and look: the same story but with different actors; pretty neat, don’t you think? It’ll make me a bundle, won’t it?”
“It surely will, Zork, since we Americans seem to accept re-do’s, makeovers and second chances. You want proof? How many times does a person have to retire to retire? I rest me case.”
“Makes sense. Now what about this other gizmo; what does it do?”
“It’s a ‘Perjury Meter.’”
“You mean it detects when people are lying? So this gauge that has Christine Blasey Ford’s name on the top means that the chance of their not telling the truth is, what, 100%?”
“Not quite; more like 11,000 per cent, with a ZERO chance of error; in other words, the machine is infallible. I’m trying to miniaturize it so I can attach it to a microphone, so whenever a politician lies it’ll blink bright red and a 110-decibel siren will go off.”
“That’s one way to stop them from lying.”
“If you’ll step over this way – watch those wires – I want to show you my pride and joy.”
“Okay, that sounds great, but first we have to sell something, so we’ll break for a commercial.”
“What Was I Thinkin” (3:31)
“We’re back; Zork had to leave on an emergency book-signing gig so we’re left holding the bag, so to speak, so what do you say we meander on over to the student center and interview some of the future leaders of America? Excuse me, please, Roving for ‘Pulse,’ the most popular show in its time slot. Care to be interviewed on live TV?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve heard about ‘Pulse’ and Newsmax so I’ll want nothing to do with your fake news, your lies and your tall tales. Even from the first day you reported that the Russian collusion was a hoax; that’s when I turned you off. You didn’t even cry when Hillary lost, and the DNC did everything under the sun to pad the vote, but we’ll get you this time for sure.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“Simple: no voter ID. We’ll instruct the illegal immigrants to vote all day long; we’ll commandeer buses to transport votes from precinct to precinct; and wherever convenient, state to state. We’ll win by a landslide, and then who do you think will be crying?”
“All of us, for it’ll be the death of our Constitutional Republic. I wonder how long it’ll take before you people realize that nothing is for free, that somewhere, somehow down the road, the Piper must be paid; there’s just no conceivable way around it. This free tuition and guaranteed income will come from one source only: taxes.”
“Not so: we’ll tax the rich.”
“But it won’t be enough, not even close. Wouldn’t even last a month; more like a couple of days, and then what? I’ll tell you what: a carbon copy of Venezuela, that’s what. So who are you going to feed first, Americans or illegal immigrants? Do you know that a homeless Veteran has less of a chance to receive public assistance than an illegal immigrant?”
“Veterans are terrorists; that’s why none of them are cops. Everyone knows that.”
“I didn’t know that; thank you for enlightening me. Do all of you future leaders of America think the way you do?”
“If they don’t, we weed them out fast enough, you can be sure of that. If your car doesn’t have ‘Down with profit!’ and ‘Socialism for all!’ stickers, we’ll egg-and-key it; that’ll teach them to leave.”
“I bet. I imagine there’s a Veteran or two taking classes here, don’t you think?”
“If there are, we’ll find them and drive them out.”
“So, what, you consider yourself a ‘free thinker?’”
“Why, of course. Everybody knows that everything was built by somebody else.”
“Brilliant. Ask your parents how their 401(k) is doing since Trump was elected: I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it doubled in the last three years.”
“You’re trying to turn things around so I’m out of here. I hope you don’t air this. Good day to you, sir.”
“Bye-bye.”
“Wait, I got something more to say.”
“I thought you didn’t want this aired.”
“But if you do: I want to say that as long as those who lie on the stand and don’t pay for it, like a year in the slammer, or the guest workers who molest our children, rape our women, and murder us all, as long as they don’t pay for their crimes, like execution, then it’ll continue ad infinitum; even I know that much.”
“So you learned that it doesn’t take much to be smarter than the government?”
“Well, if you put it that way, maybe so.”
“So if you can’t trust your government to keep you safe, what can you trust the government to do? Where you going? He just ran off, and I do mean ‘run.’ I hope he’s on the track team. You know, when I was younger I used to be on the track team* but I never took it seriously, I mean, I did it because it was fun: I got to wear the uniform and I had real-to-goodness track shoes: now I wish I had taken it seriously, a few decades later. Ah, well, such is life.
“And now it’s that time when, on behalf of the crew, I wish you all a goodnight: Goodnight.
“Good show, don’t you think? Burger time: my treat.”
[*track team: they didn’t have a discus throw in high school, but my next-door neighbor was a star discus thrower when he was in college and he taught me how to do it. I bought a hard-rubber (practice) discus when I was in 8th grade and took it with me everywhere. I had it with me all through my years in the military, where I threw it in Southeast Asia and a dozen countries that border the Mediterranean, but the most fun was when I was in Greece and found an out-of-the-way deserted ruin, and spent the afternoon – on a bright and sunny day — throwing my discus, imagining myself in the early Olympics emerging victorious. Truly, now, that one afternoon, just me and my discus, made my whole stint in the military worth it.]
“In the Jailhouse Now” (3:20)