Taken For A Ride: A Political Fairy Tale

Today's blog post was written by a friend of mine who sent me the following political fairy tale. 

Enjoy!

Once upon a time, a school board by a narrow vote approved the purchase of a new bus to get kids to school who previously could not get there. And this approval was signed by the highest authority and then reaffirmed by a panel of judges as being within the purview of the school board to purchase.

As the bus wasn’t yet in service, the cost of maintenance was still theoretical, yet, some people declared that the bus was too fancy for the kids and was too expensive to maintain. After a minority of school board members were replaced by new members, that minority wanted to kill the new bus order. They didn’t have plans to replace the bus, insisting that any such plans come only after the first bus was “repealed.”

Though they were elected to the board to represent many issues, the bus issue was the only one they obsessed about, to the point where they no longer did any other business.

The school board voted many times to “defund” the school bus but each time the vote was met with defeat, so the day before the bus was to go into service, the newly elected school board members decided to shut down ALL schools, insisting that their fellow members refused to compromise by not cooperating unilaterally and unidirectional with them.

Unfairly or not, blame fell on all members. The senior members were willing to compromise on all budget issues except for the bus which they insisted was the only way for ALL kids to get to school. The new members offered their own compromise: delay the bus until after the next election when hopefully they’d have more new school board members to defund it which meant that their compromise was delay it now so we can kill it later, and then in a year or so we’ll sit at a table and discuss how to get a few more of the kids to school but not all of them.

Their "compromise" was that the already approved bus was non-negotiable, D.O.A. And furthermore, the entire school system would remain shut down until the senior members "compromised," by which they meant "capitulated.

Editor's Note 

This is only a fairy tale; this could not happen in reality. No party would be so blatant in their own personal self-interest as to act like this, and no rational person would go along with such a self-serving scheme. I do not know where my friend comes up with this stuff!

This story is posted with permission of its author who made the following note: "[my 'significant other'] hates me to get too political so [they] would not want me to post my tale. But I figured someone might enjoy it."

I did, my friend, I did!

Wherever you are today, I hope that you'll have a rational day!

Don Bergquist - October 04, 2013 - Lakewood, Colorado, USA