When we got here on Saturday, Ted discovered that he had lost his keys. Now there weren't any keys of any importance on his keychain other than the van and truck keys. The personal keys he had were for unimportant or old things, so it wasn't that big a deal, but at the same time it vexed him, as it would any of us. Well, when Flo returned from her family funeral today, she ran into Ted and heard about how he had lost his keys. She was a little surprised since she had found his keys in the van Friday night when we got into Delaware and before she left for Maryland with her family. She handed them to Levitt and told her they were Ted's keys. At that point, Levitt said, "I'll hold on to these until he goes crazy looking for them." Flo thought she was joking. She wasn't joking. She never told Ted she had the keys. And after Flo revealed she did, and Ted asked her if she had his keys she said, "Oh yeah, I might." Then, once he took the keys, she asked Flo, "So how long did he go crazy before you told him?" People, this is the level of maturity Chamber Theatre puts on the road in charge of their tours. It's pathetic. It's childish. It's silly and mean-spirited, and I really would expect better from someone in a position fo any kind of authority. I can understand doing something like asking him Friday night if you could borrow his keys, watching him flail for a couple minutes, then give him the keys. But to purposely hold them for two days to see how much of a froth you can whip him into is like elementary school. I'm getting too old for this shit. I'm tired of being told what to do by people who don't know how to do their own jobs and who seem to prefer to act like children and who obviously peaked in high school when it comes to people skills. I mean joking around is fine, but come on, that's just silly.
Other than that, the day was very relaxing. Didn't do too much, other than get into a mini-debate on facebook about Socialism and why it shouldn't be treated like a four letter word. I had to listen to some guy try to make the argument that if we allow universal health care and education, that would be the first step to the government being allowed to tell you what to do for a living, where to live, how much money you could make and otherwise curtailing the American way of life. Let me say this right now--everyone out there STOP using slippery slope arguments. They are fallacies. They do not work, and they are specious reasoning. They sound really convincing, but if you actually look at a slippery slope argument, you should be able to pick out the major flaw in it. That is, namely, that the slope is never that slippery. Universal health care will in no way automatically lead to the government telling you what kind of house you can live in and where. For that to happen, allowing universal health care would have to carry along with it the necessity of giving up any concept of checks and balances, which is the only way that we could all of a sudden find ourselves forced to accept governmental control of every aspect of our lives. On every slope there are plateaus where societies can either cease their journey or decide to take the next step down the slope. But they are able to MAKE THAT DECISION. The only people who buy into slippery slope arguments are people who don't want to do the critical thinking required to make an informed decision. They are the main tool of people who wish to convince people to believe a position based on fear and paranoia instead of sound reasoning. So STOP letting those people get away with it. Besides, we've already proven in this country that you can socialize some things and then stop. Welfare, social security, Medicare, farm subsidies--all are forms of socialism. Yet somehow we've managed to still be a profit-driven society that allowed rampant capitalism to screw up the economy yet again. And we all still get to choose how much money we want to make, and where we work and where we live. Amazing, isn't it?
MY feeling is this, and this is the main gist behind the platform planks I've been filling the last few blog posts with. Yes, i know my positions are short on detail. That's what the Cabinet is for--to help inform me about details and the actual workings of things. (Which I would also study were I to make an actual run for the White House) Those people would also be picked from the forefront of those areas--the on the edge thinking rather than the old guard. But the point is, I am not blind to the fact that right now everything's very vague. But when you boil it all down, my position is that what else is a government that is for the people, of the people and by the people for but to educate their people? To ensure the ability of those people to keep their health? To pursue ways to keep the economy competitive and stay on the forefront of technology instead of letting it be outsourced? To keep the country as independent as possible by being willing to listen and discuss differences with other cultures? The government should serve the people, not the other way around. So if that means we need to embrace things which smack of socialism, then so be it. To reject ideas out of hand because they can be lumped under a general banner like socialism is to be very arrow in our thinking indeed. And narrow thinking is NOT the American Way of Life.
I would also like to say that should you vote for me in 2012, you will be casting your vote for a White House that knows how to have a good time. Think of me as the best of the Reagan White house--great hair, good sense of humor--and the best f the Clinton White house--intelligent leadership, hot interns. Who WOULDN'T want that as the face of America? Plus, you can forget any scandal that would attach itself to my administration. First, I see no reason to hide anything, and secondly, all my interns will swallow. That's right--Pond 2012--Clinton without the DNA evidence. God Bless America!
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