Four years ago Al Franken won a Senate seat after a six month court battle. One of the more bizarre sidelights to the battle was the revelation that someone had voted for the “lizard people”. Here’s the ballot:
At the time I had no idea what the motivation for this was, and I don’t believe this story at all, in which a publicity seeker tried to take credit for the ballot and referenced some conspiracy theory about lizards.
Most likely lots of Douglas Adams fans got the reference, but I never saw anything in the political blogosphere about it at the time. However, yesterday, while re-reading Adams’s, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, something clicked, and I can now say that I have at least a modicum of respect for the Minnesota voter. Anyway, I thought I’d pass my findings along.
It so happens that a flying saucer lands on Harrods, and somewhat as in The Day the Earth Stood Still, a shiny robot emerges from said saucer and says, much like in The Day the Earth Stood Still “We come in peace”, but adds, much unlike in The Day the Earth Stood Still “take me to your lizard”. Ford Prefect, the alien friend of hapless earthling Arthur Dent, explains to poor Arthur that the robot comes from a planet in which the people enjoy the blessings of Democracy.
“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”
“You mean it comes from a world of lizards?”
“No”, said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
“I did”, said Ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hopping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so that all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh, yes”, said Ford with a shrug, “of course”.
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”
So, this year, we can comfort ourselves with the thought that, for the most part, the right lizards got in, and we must all acknowledge that the unknown voter in Minnesota had a bit of a point.
Post a Comment