by FreeTheHostages
PRELUDE.....
Dansangel was peacefully resting on her couch, watching her favorite newschannel, CNN, when FreeTheHostages rang her doorbell.
"I read the New York Times:
I get my news from anonymous,
low-level sources."
FREE: All right, already! Can we get this over with, please?
DANSY: What??!! What are YOU doing here?
FREE: I’m here to be interviewed for my Freeper’s Finest profile. I’ve chosen you to do it.
DANSY: LOL, just like an arrogant right-winger to think you should be profiled twice! Sorry, I’ve already exposed you as an unrepentant conservative. (Starting to shut the door.)
FREE: Actually, I’ve never been profiled by you or anyone else.
DANSY: Wow, really! Well, I’ve read so much of your right-wing tripe it certainly *seems* like you’ve been profiled here - endlessly.
FREE: Nope, check it out. I’m officially un-profiled. (flopping down on Dansangel’s couch) Take your best shot, honey.
(The two glare at each other.)
DANSY: Ok, you’ve got a deal. Let me just clean up this coffee table and get a notepad. (Dansangel carefully stacks a pile of New York Times newspapers neatly on a corner of the table.)
THE INTERVIEW BEGINS.....
DANSY: You strike me as a little dangerous.
FREE: How so?
DANSY: I mean, you go out and actually Freep in D.C.
Free does lots of the important
"behind-the-scenes" jobs at DC Freeps.
FREE: Nah, that’s not what makes me dangerous to you. What makes me dangerous to you is that I’m female, Ivy League-educated (twice!), but I’m not a liberal. You find that disturbing, don’t you?
DANSY: Not really. "Tragically sad" is another phrase that comes to mind.
FREE: How so?
DANSY: Well, I mean, there you are, being trained by some of the best liberal minds in the country, and it’s readily apparent you did not take full advantage of this opportunity.
FREE: Ah, see, that’s where you and I disagree. I didn’t go get my education as a "pedigree", and I didn’t do it to belong to some special snobby club where everyone had to think alike. I went to school to learn, and at college I studied doggedly and learn I did. The liberal thing just never "took." I used to think my Vermont roots make me culturally impervious to brainwashing of any sort. Well, I was once (for a short while) a Democrat; I did vote for Jimmy Carter; I just liked all his values talk, frankly.
DANSY: Well, Carter, that was a good start. How did you go so horribly wrong?
FREE: I studied math and began to think about things logically. I also took many courses in political philosophy. Even read a lot of serious Marx, which I truly believe every educated person should read.
DANSY: Well, that’s a relief to hear!
FREE: Yup. Everyone should know about the kind of distended, magical thinking that leads to the Gulags.
IN WHICH DANSANGEL LEARNS THAT LIBERALS CAN BE SEXIST ALSO.....
DANSY: But still, you’re a female and you majored in math, didn’t you experience a lot of sex discrimination?
FREE: Well, I just didn’t major in math, I was brilliant at it. I scored the top percentile in the graduate record exams - among all math majors preparing to enter math doctoral programs. And as to discrimination, there’s a lot less of it in math than in other professions because, if you’re right, you’re right. But I did experience some sex discrimination because I majored in math.
DANSY: Ah ha!! I KNEW it. How can you possibly turn your back on the only life philosophy, liberalism, that can protect women such as yourselves?
FREE: Um, actually, it was liberal women at Harvard that discriminated against me. I was delayed entrance to Phi Beta Kappa until my senior year because some of the older Radcliffe women felt a female math major was, by definition, not "well-rounded." And when I applied to be a proctor for bright high school science students over the summer, I was turned down by these same liberal feminists on the grounds that female science students shouldn’t have science or math majors as role models because that would be "too much" and "too sciency" for their delicate constitutions. But I never had a Harvard math professor (mine all were male) give me a lower grade because I was a girl.
IN WHICH DANSANGEL LEARNS THAT CIVIL RIGHTS ISN’T JUST FOR LEFTISTS ANY MORE.....
DANSY: That’s just ridiculous. It’s men that discriminate against women! It’s white people that discriminate against blacks! That’s why we all *need* liberalism!
FREE: Funny you should mention racism. I worked hard on the anti-apartheid movement because I believed that black South Africans deserved freedom and democracy. I was pretty big in the anti-apartheid movement on campus, in fact: one of the main organizers of a 7,000 person rally in 1985. I did all that without once feeling the need to be liberal.
DANSY: This is very very disturbing.
FREE: (smiling) I thought it would bother you.
DANSY: (speaking a little louder) If you believe in equal opportunity, than you are a liberal - you just don’t know it!
FREE: I strongly and fervently believe in equal rights and equal opportunity. That’s one of the big reasons why I am a conservative.
DANSY: This is unbearable! (standing up and becoming agitated) Your entire political philosophy is antithetical to everything that Republicanism represents to me!
FREE: (smiling broadly) Sorry to get you so upset. (chewing bubble gum, popping a bubble, playing with a rubber band) But it’s right before the 2004 elections, so I guess you liberals are going to have to get used to being upset. Consider this a warm-up!
DANSY: Ooooh! I’ll get you, missy!! There must be something organic in your brain that makes you think you should believe in civil rights and yet be registered as a Republican.
FREE: Well, don’t feel bad if you don’t believe I’m a Republican. I once had to go through one of those security investigations and the FBI agent was positively annoyed to learn I both worked on anti-apartheid stuff and was a Republican. I frankly think he didn’t believe me. Freedom in South African, and freedom in Iraq, and freedom everywhere. It’s all about democracy and liberty and small governments that let the people breath. It’s just as President Bush said - liberty is a gift from God.
IN WHICH DANSANGEL DISCOVERS THE TRUE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM.....
DANSY: Ah, I get it. You’re a religious fanatic.
FREE: If you mean do I call myself a Christian, yes. I try hard most times.
DANSY: Ah ha! (sitting down and smiling) I’ve got you now!!! The opiate of the masses! I’ve discovered the problem!
FREE: That’s one of my favorite things about Marx himself and most Ivy League Marxists - they refer to the "people" as the "masses," "religion" as an "opiate," and generally use language to distance themselves from the little people. I never met someone with Marxist tendencies who wasn’t just positive that they were smarter than the average bear. You know, always summarily dismissing conservative thoughts with vacuous labels such as "stupid."
DANSY: That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
FREE: (smiling) Really? You don’t say . . . .
April 12, 2003 Rally for America
EPILOGUE: DANSANGEL TRIES TO REGAIN CONTROL OF THE INTERVIEW.....
DANSY: (adjusting collar nervously) OK, I need the basic bio stuff. How you got your name, all that stuff.
FREE: I first Freeped outside the Chinese embassy, asking peaceably to release our air crew from captivity in 2001. That’s how I got my name. You know, the Chinese Marxists have killed a lot of Tibetans. I think some days I’d like my name to be "FreeTibet" too. There are a lot of hostages to Marxism throughout the world today.
DANSY: What about the rest? I don’t seem to be getting any of the information I want out of you. Why do you Freep?
FREE: I hate to disappoint you, but there’s nothing more to tell. Democrats aren’t Marxists, but they’re precisely the wrong solution to many of this country’s important problems (including sexism and racism): they think about people as groups and they think government should control those groups. I think true unity comes from individuals uniting democratically rather than engaging in divisive group-think. "Freedom and Unity" - that’s the Vermont state motto, y’know. That’s the long and the short of it: I Freep to help secure and preserve the blessings of liberty.
DANSY: (shaking Free by the shoulders!) Snap out of it! You are a Democrat, you just don’t know it!!
FREE: (tauntingly) I voted for Bush, and I’ll vote for him again.
DANSY: Stop!! Stop!!! I can’t hear anymore of this!! (gasping for breath)
With that, Dansangel stood up and ushered Free out the door, her face ashen and drawn, her hands clinched tightly. Once outside, Free blew one more bubble with her gum.... then, using the wad as glue, took out her "Bush 2004" sign and affixed it prominently to Dansangel's mailbox. Free smiled, "It was a good interview. I'm glad she asked me."
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