I affirm the following is as true a transcript of a conversation I had this morning with Steve, my local Palm Springs, California USPS mail carrier.
(That the conversation is with a mail carrier is in no way intended as indicative of either that group of workers, or any group of workers. The same conversation, or its equivalent, could have transpired with Silicon Valley high-tech engineers, Boston attorneys or Duke Hospital physicians. I am presenting this one because this is the one I had, and I don’t want to confect the sentiments expressed, en route to making a point.)
“Morning Steve. How ya doin’?”
“Man, this political stuff.”
“Hmm, just be glad you’re not in Iowa or New Hampshire. Those folks are getting up to 50 pieces a day.”
“It’s for the propositions . . .”
Being registered to vote in Nevada I’d forgotten that California has a primary election coming up the first part of February, and how there will likely be propositions on the respective ballots as well as party candidates. And thinking of the voter pamphlet guides, I remarked “that’s one of the things I always treasured about California: you have to intentionally be ignorant concerning the various issues before the electorate.”
“They give you the con and the pros. I think they should get some independent side to just say what each one is about in plain language, so that everyone can understand.”
“They do Steve. They give the pro side, then the con. Then they give the con against the pro. Then the pro against the con. And then the Secretary of State provides a plainly worded estimate what the proposition will do, and how much it will cost.” (On that, I may have made a mistake. It may not be the Secretary of State. But it is an independent representative providing the best-guess impact estimates.)
Then I made an assumption, supposing, being a letter carrier, that Steve was a kindred political spirit, and waded into the pond: “Who are you for?”
“Just not Clinton, or Obama, or . . .”
That’s where I cut him off, rudely interrupted the fellow. With disapproving look I confronted him eye to eye: “You’re not a Republican are you Steve?”
“Yeah.”
That’s where I was off to the races. “Really? Because if that’s so, you’re the lowest of scum on the earth. You don’t mind seeing babies die, children mutilated by the hundreds of thousands, the Constitution shredded, and torture.”
“Look, they torture us.”
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