This week on Sam Riedel’s Old-Timey Variety Hour, it’s a very special apology episode. This one’s going out to the die-hard socialists here at Binghamton.
You see, I managed to sneak my way into Binghamton Review’s “Press Watch” section in their latest issue. They quoted a column of mine from a few weeks ago regarding the economy, in which I advocated collective responsibility and a possible tax hike in the future. So in recognition of my unending work for the proletariat, I was awarded the title of Freshman Class Resident Socialist. Also, it would seem that I am “a visionary, just like Lenin.”
Here comes the apology.
Dear socialists, can you find it in your heart to forgive me for stealing the title one of you so richly deserves? I don’t read your literature, I don’t stop to say hello when you’re canvassing by the fountain. I’ve never done anything to promote the People’s Revolution because I’m not really much of a socialist.
Oh sure, I can talk the talk, but I can’t walk the walk. I know in my heart socialism is a terribly flawed version of government that has ended in tragedy on numerous occasions in the past. All I can say is that socialism has a great set of ideals.
Socialism has its merits, but we will never be able to institute it successfully in America. It would require armed revolution and active suppression of dissenting opinions, of which there will be many.
The lady Democracy is my girl; she may have her flaws and her pockmarks here and there, but she’s beautiful to me. Though I’m not a hardline socialist, I wish you luck as you distribute your mysterious pamphlets. (A word of advice: tell the people out tabling for the cause to speak up and enunciate. A man in a dark trench coat mumbling incoherently and thrusting socialist newspapers at me is an experience that can truly ruin my afternoon.)
All right, I’ve apologized and I feel better. Now I have but one more thing to say.
The American Dream is to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make your own way in the world. The government should do no more than is absolutely necessary and, above all, it should stay out of your life. This is what people mean when they refer to the American Dream. The Review and like-minded individuals have intimated that I am somehow a traitor to that dream, that socialist ideals go against all this country holds dear.
Ladies and gentlemen, the American Dream can go to hell.
Take a look at the America you don’t want to think about. There are people lying in the streets who can’t get up because they’re going through heroin withdrawal, the contents of their stomachs finding new and exciting ways to be thrown up. There are children who have been raped and impregnated by men twice their age. There are high school dropouts who have three felonies before the age of 27 because drug dealing is the only way to get by in their world — the world they can’t escape.
My government is there to help them escape. My government is there to give them the aid they need to ease their suffering. My government exists to provide health care for those who can’t afford it, to find jobs for adults with autism, to make sure homeless people have a bowl of soup and a bed to sleep in at night.
My government is a human being, with a conscience and a sense of duty. That’s why it’s there and that’s why I always want it to be there. To help those we thought were beyond help.
Now look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong.