Time to Get Familiar With Sarcasm

So, my wife was visiting with one of her former High School students, who is now at Grambling. This student said something crazy...I'll let her tell it (reposted from a different blog).

at the end of our day before i dropped her off i asked her if she'd registered to vote. she said she had. i said, because i'm big on this, make sure you vote. she said, oh i will, i've got to vote to get bush out of office. i said, well what's john kerry going to do for you? she said, he's going to make sure that i'm not put back in slavery... i'm like, WHAT?? she said that in 2007 black people will no longer be able to vote because when they were originally given the right to vote, it was only for a certain amount of time, and it will need to be renewed. i said, so you think that in 2007 you won't be able to vote anymore? she said, not if bush is in office. and i'm just shocked, i don't even know what to say. i said, so in 2007, if bush is in office, colin powell won't be able to vote anymore? condoleeza rice won't be able to vote anymore? black senators and mayors and congressmen and women--they'll all be in office with no vote? she said, if bush is still president. i'm like, you SERIOUSLY believe this??? she was serious. and then she changed the subject.

Remember this the next time somebody talks about Bush stealing an election. Which one is worse -- to keep people from voting entirely, or to lie to get them to vote a certain way?

First of all, the 2007 thing isn't even true...second of all, they're going to stop blacks from voting? In 2004? And nobody will be able to stop the maniacal Bush from doing it? Can't you just see him -- THE MAN himself, grinning as the "black voting act" expires, and pressing the button on his desk that THE MAN has been waiting to press for 140 years, the one that makes slavery legal again, with all the white Republicans standing around him, also grinning, with no black people outside protesting because they've all been classified as terrorists and arrested under the USA-PATRIOT ACT, and the button is pressed, and all the white people in the USA, who have secretly hated all blacks for so many years, and who have been waiting with baited breath for 2007 to come so that blacks could be legally disenfranchised and slave-ized, get to go home to federally-enforced slave labor, and nobody can do anything about it because BUSH HAS SPOKEN, and they're selling blacks on ebay, and I'd go further but this mythical scenario would probably get me in trouble, if it hasn't already.

Stop it, everyone. Stop being so paranoid. Democracy only works when the populace is informed and thinking, people. Otherwise we're all dead. Don't you know that? Don't you care? Vote, but learn first.