January 17, 2011
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Drafting History
“It’s Martin Luther King Day!”
“Hey, you’re right! What an awesome holiday!”
“Wait you know he was one of us right?”
“WHAT? No way, that dude was TOTALLY on our side!”
“Puh-lease, everybody knows he would have hated you people.”
“Right, and you think he’d like you any better?”
“My POINT is that if you look at his writings and speeches he clearly believed the same things we believe.”
“Maybe at first, but by the end he was totally on board with OUR Philosophy!”
“Was not!”
“Was too!”
“MLK is MINE!”
“NUH UH HE’S MINE!”
“OK, this argument is getting us nowhere. Let’s talk about something else.”
“How about that terribly tragic shooting that took place the other day.”
“Yeah, that was truly a shameful tragedy. If only we could have prevented it.”
“I agree, but unfortunately that Loughner guy was a total lunatic. Not much we can do about that.”
“Agreed. He was coocko for cocoa puffs. But…”
“But what?”
“But… you know you kinda have to admit he was more on your side than mine.”
“Oh you have GOT to be kidding me! I was just thinking about how totally obvious it is that he’s on YOUR side!”
“Wh… what? My side? I’ve never heard anything more ludicrous in my life.”
“Look at the books he favorited. They are so totally your side books.”
“Please, your side reads some of those books just as much as our side. Besides, if you listen to the crazy stuff he spouts in that video you can’t help but admit it sounds more like you than us.”
“No way, it sounds exactly like you guys to me!”
“Have you ever even listened to us? We reject everything about those videos!”
“Well SO DO WE!”
“Oh just stop arguing and take him. He’s obviously one of you!”
“No way! We don’t want him! You can have him!”
“Well we aren’t taking him! No way, no how!”
“Okay, okay wait. I’ve got an idea. We’ll take Loughner but on one condition. You guys have to own up to the fact that Timothy McVeigh was always on your side!”
“Timothy McVeigh! You can’t be serious!”
“Of course I’m serious. One psychotic mass murderer for another. Fair’s fair.”
“Timothy McVeigh is worth at least 10 Loughners. No… if we take McVeigh you have to take Loughner, the Beltway Sniper, that guy who was sending anthrax through the mail, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad who shot up that military base, the guy who killed Dr. Tiller, Saddam Hussein, and oh yeah Osama Bin Laden.”
o_O
“Okay, okay, we’ll take the guy who killed Dr. Tiller. But the rest still stands.”
“No no no no no no. If we’re talking Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden you’re going to have to own up to some bigger fishes than that. For Hussein, I’d say you have to take at least someone like Mussolini. And for Osama bin Laden, I’m pretty sure the only fair trade is Adolf Hitler.”
“HITLER!?!?!”
“Yes that’s right.”
“Hitler is worth a thousand bin Laden’s any day! No if you want us to take Hitler we’re going to have to up the anti a LOT. I’d say you need to take Genghis Kahn-”
“No problem there he was pretty bad ass.”
“For a psychopath. Sure.”
“Anyway continue.”
“As I was saying you get Kahn, and also Pinochet, Attila the Hun, Pol Pot, Nero, Caligula, Ivan the Terrible, Rasputin, Charles Manson, Goebbels, Josef Mengele, Henry VIII, Kim Jung Il, and Jack the Ripper.”
“Now wait just a minute! If we’re going to take all of those people, then you HAVE to take Stalin too. Oh and on top of that I think we should get to keep Martin Luther King.”
“Fine. We’ll take Stalin if we must. But for Martin Luther King further negotiation is necessary.”
“I’m listening.”
“Alright. So you want Martin Luther King, I’m thinking that we want Jesus.”
“But–”
“Now hold on I wasn’t quite done. We want Jesus. So we’re willing to not just let you have King, but we’ll even throw in Ghandi, Malcom X, Rosa Parks, and Nelson Mandela.”
“Hmmm… That’s nearly acceptable. But we also want Abraham Lincoln. We’re willing to trade you any and all other US Presidents from Abraham Lincoln’s reign on up.”
“Not bad, not bad… We get FDR, JFK, LBJ, Reagan, Eisenhower…”
“If you want em you got em. But let’s talk other areas. We’d also like to have every famous scientist from Benjamin Franklin to Isaac Newton to Einstein on our side.”
“That’s quite a lot to ask for…”
“I know but name your price.”
“OK, if you get every famous scientist then we first of all get every famous transformative religious figure not already mentioned–”
“Done!”
“WAIT! I wasn’t done yet.”
“Okay, okay go on.”
“We also get famous authors. Literary figures like Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Emerson, Wiesel, George Orwell, Maia Angelou the whole works.”
“That’s quite a lot to ask.”
“You’re getting Einstein and Hawkings for Christ sake!”
“True… but still….”
“Okay, okay you drive a hard bargain. We get the whole set of famous economists and psychology people Freud, Jung and the likes, and we’ll throw in for you every other major philosopher in history from Aristotle to Kant to Rawls to Locke to Nietsche.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“So we have a deal?”
“Almost, but one last thing needs to be settled. You see we covered recent presidents but we still haven’t taken care of Thomas Jefferson. We want him on our side too.”
“That’s possible but to get him we’re going to need to have every other founding father on our side.”
“Okay, but you also have to take King George III.”
“hmmm. Alright I think that’s acceptable.”
“Sweet! Then we have a deal?”
“Deal.”
“Done.”
*they shake hands*
And so it was that all historical arguments were finally ended for all time.
Comments (1)
Nobody wants Lady Gaga! : (