Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Bus to Cleveland, A Parable

A very interesting parable emerged among the comments over at Stand Firm yesterday. Paul B started it:
Okay, you get on a bus. You’ve bought a ticket to go to Cleveland.

In the middle of the trip, you change drivers. The new driver wants to go to New York City instead. He/She takes a vote, and a vocal minority (the only people he/she hears) vote to go to New York City. A minor riot ensues, the police are called, and the people complaining that they bought a ticket for Cleveland are threatened with jail if they don’t shut up and be quiet on the way to New York City.

Are the people complaining they didn’t want to go to NYC in the wrong?

SpongJohn SquarePantheist played along andtook the progressives position:
Only if when deciding to change buses they expect to take their luggage with them or a refund on the ticket.

And Marty the Baptist joined in:
Only an idiot would board a bus for Cleveland… NYC is where the action is. Trust us.

One Day Closer was playing it straight, almost like she was doing a Gracey Allen imitation. But she summed up the unfairness quite well:
SpongJohn SquarePantheist,
If your post was sarcasim my apologies, however, the people that paid for the ticket to Cleveland bought it fully expecting to get what they paid for. A destination to Cleveland!!! The luggage and what is in it was bought and paid for with their hard earned money by them not the bus driver nor the changers of the destination of the bus.

Marty replied:
ODC, the “holy spirit” is doing a new thing—you’re gonna love NYC!!! Trust us… only the truly backwards go to cleveland…

And no—you cannot leave the bus. Or, if you must, you can jump off while we’re moving. But your luggage stays with us. We’ll sell it at a flea-market in NYC… but only to people who solemnly swear that they have never been to, nor will ever go to, Cleveland.

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