Friday, November 20, 2009

Nick Gillespie's latest fund-raising ploy for Reason magazine. Brilliant.

Why you should support Reason magazine:

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love it.

Cedric Katesby said...

I can see the appeal of the "gotcha" moment but at the risk of sounding like a party-pooper, I can understand the politician's reaction.

Walk a mile in the guy's shoes for a moment and give him the benefit of the doubt.
I don't know the full circumstances of when that footage was taken or where the politician was going to but (for the sake of fairness) play devil's advocate and create favourable conditions for the stuff that the viewer doesn't know.

For example: The politician had just left an a grueling, 7-hour meeting that went badly and he was entirely focused on getting the hell out of there to lick his wounds and was not interested in what some strangers had to say as he left the building.

I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Or how about he was going somewhere important and had things to do? Perhaps he had a vital meeting with somebody and he was already behind schedule and he didn't have time for any unusual requests from some strangers who were waiting for him as he existed the building?

Or perhaps it's as simple as the politician not wanting to sign something he has not read?

What? Am I saying that the politician has not read the American Constitution?
Nope.

I'm saying that the politician had not read whatever it was that he was asked to sign.

He was asked to sign...something.
That's all we really know.
In reality, it could have been anything.
Some stranger ambushed him as he was leaving a building.
The politician had no reason to believe the stranger's claim that it was the American Constitution.

It could have been something different.
Effectively, the stranger was saying "Trust me, sign this".

Nobody but a fool would just whip out their pen and sign then and there.

Could he have read it first?
Maybe. Maybe not.

Perhaps he was on a tight schedule?

How long does it take to CAREFULLY read the American Constitution?
It might say "American Constitution" in the title but....that doesn't mean that some hoaxer hasn't fiddled around with some of the fine print to create the ultimate "gotcha" moment.

Here's an authentic looking copy that I found online.

It's a 'fine-printers' wet dream.

If somebody handed you a document like that without warning and said "Sign this" and they had a camera on you...what would you do?

How do you know that the whole thing is untampered unless you take a good few minutes to carefully read the thing?

Or are you going to allow yourself to be fast-talked into signing a copy of something when you have not read that particular copy?


How do you know that it's not some kind of gag or cheap political stunt?

Imagine the political fallout if a politician signed a cunningly re-worded version of the American Constitution.
A version that made it look like the Founding Fathers supported death camps.
Or a version that declared the United States to be Baptist Theocracy?

So the doctored version gets plastered all over the Internet with the politician's siganture on it.
GOTCHA!!!!
GOTCHA!!!!
GOTCHA!!!!
No matter how many times the politician concerned tries to explain the situation; he's toast.

If he claims that he was tricked because he was late for lunch then he looks like an idiot.

If he claims that he trusted the guy that gave him the copy just because the guy said it was the Constitution then, he looks like an even bigger idiot.

TarrantLibertyGuy said...

Only Cedric Katesby could write a 2,500 word essay on a 30 second clip. He's the only guy more verbose than me.

Cedric Katesby said...

:)

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Knock knock....
Who's there?
Dwayne.
Dwayne who?
Dwayne the bathtub, I'm Dwowning !

Cedric,
Please analyze the preceding knock- knock joke, paying particular attention to its probable origin, the punctuation that I chose, the possible motivations of the original knock-knocker, and the socio-religious impact of speech impediment jokes on the political process, "gotcha" journalism, and climate change.
Be thorough.