The $50 Lesson
I recently asked my friends' little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President of the United States. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there. So I asked her, "If you were President, what would be the first thing you would do?" She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people." Her parents beamed.
"Wow...what a worthy goal," I told her. "But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my driveway, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house."
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?" I said, "Welcome to the Rep-"
She interrupted, "Oh, I remember, he did walk through the neighborhood asking if he could mow the lawns, and you yelled at him and said you'd call the cops if he didn't leave and that he should get a haircut and a job. And what's a dirty hippy?"
"But that's-"
"Anyway, I don't want to just help him, I want to help EVERYBODY!" She threw her arms out wide as she yelled this last word. "I think I'd need more than $50 for that! Maybe even a million, jillion!"
I sputtered, "But you can't just redistribute wealth like that!"
She made a little moue and put her nose in the air and said, "I can when I'm President!" Her parents snickered.
I'm still not speaking to them.