Once Upon A Time, A Man Was Robbed

by Gene Royer - a voice of reason in a babbling society. January 25th, 2001

I am a fiction writer, and this is a work of fiction.

Today I was listening to Walter Williams on the radio. Dr Williams is a well-educated American, as well as a staunch conservative who hates liberalism even more than I do. While listening to him, I got this idea for a story. It intends a moral.

BILL GREEN GOES TO BUFFALO

One day a male college student from the Bay Area named Bill Green (no relation to others with like-sounding names) was visiting friends in Buffalo, New York, when he was approached by a thug who brandished a butter knife and told him to give him all his money.

"What if I don't?" Asked Bill?

"Then I will kill you," said the man.

Bill had always marched in protest for stricter butter knife control laws
and was terrified and immediately complied--coughing up his last $300 and
taking note of the man's identifying features.

A few days later, the thug was apprehended, and Bill was called to come and pick him out of a lineup. Without hesitation, when Bill got there he pointed to the suspect and said it was the man who had taken his money by "threat of force".

However, the man had a sad, sad story. He said he had taken Bill's money by threat of force and given it to an old woman living on the streets who needed warm clothes and medical attention. The man said she had swollen feet, smelled of several weeks without a bath and had snow in her mustache. Bill's heart was touched. He told the police that he was a good liberal--and that even though the thief had broken the law, his intentions were benevolent. He said he wasn't going to go through with the prosecution.

But the arresting officer was a fence-straddling moderate who had recently voted for Hillary Clinton and was already contrite. He was not in the mood for wishy-washy feelgoodism. And he told Bill that if he didn't go through with it, he would not give him any help in raising bus fare back to San Francisco.

Bill was a professional son who had never worked before, and he did not relish the idea; so, he complied. The thief was convicted and sent to prison--where he was able to complete his education at taxpayers expense and become an accountant.

Four years later the thief got out of jail and began looking for work. Because he was a felon, no one would hire him except the government; and since theft was his only stock in trade, he went to work as an auditor for the IRS. But he never forgot the name of the man who had sent him up the river.

He had an ex-cellmate buddy working in the Clinton White House who was able to access certain FBI files being kept there. He found Bill Green's name and address, which he passed along; and the man put in for a transfer to the IRS office in that town. It took him a year, but he finally managed to put Green's account in the Audit pool, where he fished it out and gave his old nemesis a call.

Of course, Green did not recognize the man because he was now shaven and shorn, wearing a three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase instead of a butter knife. The former thief had to tell him who he was, and the also told Bill he had underpaid his taxes by $300, and that he would have to cough it up.

"What if I don't?" Asked Bill.

"Then I will put you in jail," said the man.

Mygod, thought Bill, this is the same thing that happened to me five years ago. This very same man took my money by threat of force, and now he is taking it again by that same method. The first time, the theft by threat of force had been illegal, but this time it is legal.

But Bill was still a good liberal, even after all these years. "It's still theft," he reasoned. "But it's okay because it's the government who is doing it. And the government always knows what's best for me."

"What will you do with my money?" He asked.

"Well, first of all, it's not your money, it's ours," said the man from the IRS. "All money belongs to the U.S. government. It's got our name on it. And we just let you use some of it for a while. Now we're taking it back, and we will give it to someone in need. That's what the government is for.

Bill loved the idea. If this thief--who was now on the government payroll--took his money, he would use it to help some out-of-luck person. He suddenly felt warm inside, and he took out his checkbook and wrote the amount in his big ol' scrawl--even adding a few dollars on the end to make sure all the little things were taken care of.

As the auditor was closing his file, Bill asked him the name of the person who would get the government's money.

"Oh, no one in particular," he answered. "There's this program down in Texas where they teach troubled white kids how to play basketball at midnight. It's a big success because there hasn't been a single case of
purse snatching or truancy since it started."

Bill gasped, snatched the check from the auditor's hand and called him a low-life government worker.

"White kids? That's crapola!" He shouted, as he stomped out in righteous indignation. "Their daddy's voted for Dubya. They don't deserve *MY* money."

Bill was suddenly disillusioned. What is this government coming to, he mused? One day it's fighting for good things like the abolition of God, promotion of immorality and reverse discrimination; and the next day it's squandering his money on worthless social programs for rich white kids on drugs.

How dare the government take his money and waste it. Who did those government thieves think they were?

This was $300 he figured he could spend on other things and enjoy them more; and he would protest in the streets and fight them in court if he had to. Tomorrow he planned to register as an independent...and next time, he was voting for Buchanan.