Overheard at the swim meet today.
Kid 1: “When Matt Damon is elected president, the country’s going communist. Seriously, wait and see.”
[Huh? What is this kid talking about? Only later did I find this. Kids these days are precocious, I guess.]
Kid 2: “Dude, what are you talking about?”
[Let’s hear it for Kid 2, the voice of reason!]
Kid 2: “Matt Damon isn’t running for president.”
[Right! But that’s not the only problem with what Kid 1 is saying, is it?]
Kid 1: “No, seriously, he’s going to turn this into a communist country.”
[At this point I turned around, curious to see how old these kids were: about fifteen or sixteen, I’m pretty sure.]
Kid 3: “Dude, you’re nuts.”
[Let’s hear it for Kid 3, the voice of reason!]
Kid 3: “The Constitution says that the United States can’t be a communist country.”
[Hmm, maybe the 1st Amendment? If you squint a bit?]
Kid 3: “And anyway, the army won’t let him get away with it. They’ll totally take him out.”
[At this point it required all my will power to keep from turning around again and shouting at this kid, who was wearing his swimsuit, a faded Hawaiian Tropic towel, and Crocs, “Where in the Constitution do you get that, smart guy? If President Damon wants to overhaul the nation’s economic system and he has the support of Congress, you think the Army will stop him? I think not! President Damon is the commander in chief of the armed forces, you nitwit!” But I held my peace. And then it was time for my older boy to swim his event, so off we went. Probably I should stay away from swimming pools at this time of year.]
The Edge of the American West 
10 comments
December 4, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Ken Houghton
Dang. I spent four hours on deck this morning (Port of Call, Bayonne, New Jersey) and none of the kids said anything remotely close to that
December 4, 2011 at 9:55 pm
TF Smith
I’m surprised any of them knew who Matt Damon was.
December 5, 2011 at 3:26 am
big bad wolf
i used to have problems like this that exhausted my will power on silly things, but concentrating it on becoming a shut-in has greatly reduced my annoyance level
December 5, 2011 at 5:09 am
LizardBreath
You can save Kid 2 as sane if you cut him one break — say he thinks ‘communist’ means ‘totalitarian dictatorship’ (which I think is a fairly plausible belief for a kid that age.) Then the constitutional line makes sense, and even the bit about the Army does: you have to picture a crisis with crazy President Damon giving the Army illegal orders to shut down Congress or something, and the Army disobeying and finally winkling him out of the fortifies White House. I see someone sneaking through the underground tunnels to persuade the Secret Service to surrender before the shelling starts. And then after President Damon was captured, he could be rehabilitated and play himself in the movie.
December 5, 2011 at 6:24 am
heydave
Kids say the darnedest things!
(Now where’s my fucking sweater of many colors?)
December 5, 2011 at 9:08 am
Anderson
I dunno — if you grant me the premises that (1) Matt Damon is president and (2) he’s somehow making the U.S. a communist country, then I don’t think that (3) a military coup takes Damon out, is all that far-fetched … relatively speaking.
(But of course, they’d better send their best special-ops team — did you see those Bourne movies?)
December 5, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Michael H Schneider
Article IV, section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government …..
Anton Scalia has in his possession several writings from our founding fathers that express their original intent quite clearly. They say, and I quote “Dude! that toally means not commuist!”
Do I need to Google to find out who Matt Damon is, or may I continue in happy ignorance?
December 5, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Mr Punch
Damon’s pretty far left … but so was Reagan at a similar stage of his career, I guess.
December 6, 2011 at 11:48 am
kevin
Are you sure they weren’t just fucking with Matt Damon? I hear it’s all the rage.
December 7, 2011 at 9:48 am
Robert Burns
I have a screed in my current repetoire that goes something like the reason the US governentment doesn’t work anymore is because they got rid of all the communists. They were the ones that built all the programs that work because they were the only ones who had thought things out. When the New Deal brought them to government they were so delighted they stopped being communist and went about saving capitalism. They weren’t lonely anymore and were pretty busy so they didn’t go to any more meetings. I don’t know the truth value of any of this but it seems right. Truthy.