R.S.F. America

A Political Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there were Three Little Libs: Billary, Barry and John. They each constructed a campaign because he or she wanted to be the one living in the big White House in Washington, D.C. Billary’s campaign was made out of dirt, Barry’s out of words and John’s out of deception. They all had one thing in common. Their campaigns were held together with nothing but tissue…a tissue of illusion. The Three Libs hoped the nearby villagers wouldn’t find this out before it was time for the big election!

Billary was really two Libs. She could shriek and shout in a shrill voice until none of the others were audible or she could shed crocodile tears and actually make some of the villagers feel sorry for her. She had to be careful because continual screaming and sobbing might irritate the neighbors; besides, nobody wanted tear stains on the carpet in the big White House. As if that weren’t enough, she had the help of the slimy old troll who lived under the bridge that crossed the stream that divided the village from the edge of the cliff where the Libs lived.

Together, the two of them often threw mudballs at the other Little Libs; an activity which soon became annoying. They would run back and forth across the bridge and fling their clay-like concoctions at the others from both sides of the stream! One day, Barry threw some of the mud back and almost knocked Billery’s campaign down and that’s when she unboxed her deck of black magic cards. The next time, instead of just flinging a mudball, she packed a race card inside to make the projectile harder to handle. As the dreaded card-packed mud hurtled toward Barry, she and the slimy troll jumped up and down screaming, “Look what he’s doing, look what he’s doing!”

You see, Barry had darker skin than the other Little Libs. He wasn’t much darker [in fact, a few of the village elders said he wasn't dark enough] but it made him an easy target. Billary had other cards in there, too…she had already used the magic gender card several times. But Barry had a few tricks up his own sleeve. He could rotate his head a full 360 degrees in any direction as a diversion, so people wouldn’t notice that his words were empty. Oh, the way he spoke the words sounded fine, even inspiring, but he had not the experience to give them any meaning. He chose them very carefully and spoke only in platitudes, so it was difficult to recognize that what he claimed to want for the village wasn’t necessarily what he would deliver if he ever got the chance to govern it. Some of the townsfolk even tried to compare Barry with someone who lived in the big White House long ago but had been shot by a hunter who mistook the peaceful hamlet for an untamed woods. However, the only thing they might have actually had in common was their ability to weave word spells that made people feel good, even though the words were without substance. Still, many of the inhabitants weren’t very smart and it was hoped they would buy the imagery again this time as they had many years before.

Although neither one ever said so out loud, both Billary and Barry wanted to change the village into a collectivist society, where the government controlled everything instead of the people being in charge of their own affairs. They also wanted to take away the people’s right to speak openly and to defend themselves against forces which could do them harm. The latter two items were part of a Constitution written by the founders who built the village. It was a document the Libs had been trying to pervert in order to exercise their own power over the people.

The third Little Lib, John, didn’t want to go quite that far but, in his own way, he was just as dangerous to the village as Billary or Barry. In fact, he told the villagers he wasn’t a Lib at all. He even pretended to be Conservative, though many of the things he had done previously proved otherwise. John was a war hero and was once held prisoner in a far off land…so you’d think he would appreciate the comfort and safety of the village; but this was not the case. He consorted with other Libs to take away the people’s right to the free and open exchange of ideas, to allow illegal foreigners to trample into the village and steal from its treasury, to give legal rights to sworn enemies and even bring them into the village! If that were not enough, once, he nearly snuck into the Big White House by befriending a deceitful lord, who built a campaign of lies which collapsed when the people discovered certain truths just in the nick of time.

In this adult fairy tale, instead of a mean ol’ wolf who huffed and puffed and blew the flimsy campaigns down, we have a knight in shining armor [only a slight bit of tarnish around the elbows] who came riding into town on a great white stallion, trying to prevent a disastrous reign of terror that might have changed the village forever. His name was Sir Romney…and even though several very fine men [who as Conservatives thought and fought as he did] had already fallen in earlier battles, he continued his relentless ride through the village in an attempt to rescue unsuspecting citizens from the onslaught of aspiring Lib legions. He possessed valuable experience in these matters.

A few of the outlying hamlets had already held elections and were handily fooled by John and the other Libs. Will the remaining villagers wake up in time to save themselves or be doomed to the bliss of an ignorant sleep? Will Billary, Barry and John tip their hand and reveal their true identities? Can Sir Romney spur his mighty steed on to The Big White House ahead of those who would do the village irreparable harm? Tune in next Tuesday for an update and in November for the as yet unwritten conclusion of The Three Little Libs.

R.S.F.