BY
On the elevator up to the office just now, several fellow financial types from various firms were reading the paper. One of them muttered gleefully to the rest of us, sotto voce, ”Our first day without a government!” We all chuckled. Another said, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we’re free at last.” More hilarity ensued; happy laughter, rather than bitter. Another said, to furloughed government workers, “Let them do whatever they please.” I said, “They could get jobs!” We left the elevator in fine fettle, grinning on our way to our desks.
We were all financial types, granted; so, if only by virtue of our years of reading the Wall Street Journal, more likely than most to understand and chafe at the absurdity and evil of the Fake Economy. But like most professionals, even financial types are more apt to be liberals than not. So, I was struck by the atmosphere of holiday, of jubilee, that suddenly pervaded our little rising car. A black secretary in the corner joined in the merriment; presumably she had had a real job for many years, and like the rest of us had paid lots and lots of taxes.
This little sojourn in the free country of the Fathers will probably be over before the end of the day. But there is a yearning in the American heart for that simpler and, therefore, more honest life. The question arises naturally in the mind: what if the whole monstrous edifice of waste and foolishness, of deceit and pretense just … vanished? What would that be like?
The question answers itself. It would be wonderful.
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