One in a row....

Last Saturday my family and I made our annual trek to the Renaissance Festival. We had a fine time, enjoying the food, games, crafts, displays, entertainment, and the scenery.

Sidebar: Attention ladies! Please remember that being able to fit into the dress does not mean that you should wear it in public!

Anyway......on our way out, we passed by a chocolate shoppe that employed an outside salesman. For those of you who haven't been to the Faire, the outside salesman are generally a scruffy looking dude whose idea of preparing for work is to skip bathing for a week. As we passed this outside salesman he interrupted his cries of "Free chocolate!" to ask me how I felt about the Pledge of Allegiance. I can only assume that he did so because I was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Old Glory on the front with the Pledge written in the stripes of the flag. His first question to me was: "How do you feel about the words 'under God'......in or out of the pledge?"

I replied that "under God" should be part of the Pledge. I was then treated to a well rehearsed, 5 minute diatribe on how the "right wing Christians" are "forcing their beliefs" on the rest of the people. He hit all of the talking points in his speech......tolerance, George W. Bush, Iraq, the 1st Amendment, organized Christians are destroying the United States, there is no God.......you name it. If it has been mentioned on Democratic Underground, this guy touched on it.

After he wound down, I began asking questions. The first was this: "You seem quite interested in the idea of 'tolerance,' yet you seem unable to actually practice tolerance for anyone who doesn't agree with you. Why is that?"

He sputtered, mumbled and fumbled for a few seconds, and then I followed up with: "Do you get paid to be here?"

"Well, uh, yeah." was his brilliant reply.

"Do you keep the money?" I asked.

"Sure." He was confident now. These were easy questions. He was a smart boy...he could handle it.

"Have you ever read what's on the back?" He was totally unprepared for that one. After a few seconds of terror, he gathered his wits and replied with this gem of Democratic brilliance:

"That's different. I'm not going to be broke and homeless just because something is written on the money."

I let him smile at me for a second and then said, "That's the difference between us. I would fight and die for what I believe in, but your principles are only important to you when they're convenient."

His reply was to walk away and start yelling "Free chocolate!" at the crowd again. After having spoken with him, I'm not so sure that he was really an outside salesman. It very well could have been a political statement.