Dinner Conversation
Written by Nick Caraway —
“I wish I had the presence of mind to write these things down, but I saw Pete Hegseth at CPAC claim to know what most of us average folks talk about when we go to the local diner. Apparently, we don’t talk about equal rights or any mumbo jumbo like that. Apparently, we are talking about three things: standing for the anthem, the tenth amendment, and of course the Bible.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m getting sick and tired of people presume they can speak for me and what I’m talking about when I’m meeting with friends. Maybe I’m not an average guy. Maybe the good folks that come around here are not average folks. That’s probably one of the best dodges for folks like Hegseth. How we define average is a floating standard that changes to meet our rhetorical needs.
My personal favorite was the tenth amendment. I’m calling shenanigans on that one. I’d imagine less than 20 percent of his “average people” couldn’t even quote the second amendment to you much less than tenth. Even if they could look it up on the Google machine it would likely take them an hour to figure out what it meant.
To put forth the idea that anyone is discussing politics with friends is far-fetched but we certainly aren’t discussing false flag issues like that. I don’t know many constitutional scholars and I’m a former Government teacher. I’m not sure how often the anthem or the Bible come up in casual conversation either.
I’ll make a deal with Mr. Hegseth, Mr. Perry, and Mr. Patrick. I won’t speak for you and you don’t speak for me. I certainly don’t know if I’m average or not and I don’t want any jackass in Austin or Washington telling anyone else what I’m willing or not willing to sacrifice. I can make up my own mind on that. One more thing: I’d suggest some new dinner conversation topics before all of your friends bail on you in the diner.”
Nick
Now Nick you need to understand that if you ‘are NOT talking about three things: standing for the anthem, the tenth amendment, and of course the Bible.’ (or Benghazi! Clinton’s emails, Obama’s birth cirtificate) … you should be!
1These sincere folks keep proving their Conservative brain is all about 3 things, fear, hate and bigotry.
Yep … I can’t remember much in the way of dinner conversation topics in the COVID times, but I’m certain I neither asked OR answered anything on the 10th Amendment.
Earlier in my life, I memorized the Amendments …. well, the First, anyway … and have been to numerous occasions celebrating its clauses. And I’ve participated in celebrations of the 5th, 13th, 19th, and 26th. But it would seem a strange group who would seek out a conversation on the 10th Amendment.
2As a left-wing libertarian, I am far more interested in the 9th
3amendment than in the 10th amendment. But do I talk about it in diners? No. More likely to be talking about the willful and invincible ignorance of the average Republican. And with certain companions we may talk religion, but only in the context of Matthew 25, and how it applies to our everyday actions towards the rest of humanity.
@ John in denver#2 – >But it would seem a strange group who would seek out a conversation on the 10th Amendment.
…at least since 1865, despite the insistence of my grade school history teachers that “The Late Unpleasantness” was caused by a disagreement over the 10th amendment.
4Nick, rest assured one thing we do not discuss around the dinner table is that inflated ego aka Pete Hegseth, the guy best ‘known’ for never washing his hands. Then again, if we had cable TV which we do not, it sure would not include Fox Not the News.
10th Amendment, eh? Good suggestion, Nick. Thanks. We’ll probably continue home schooling for another year, if the schools aren’t safe by September. So all suggestions appreciated; think covering each of the Amendments could be fun.
5I’m with you Nick.
I’ve lived almost 40 years of my life in Joe lunchbucket locales, and now plate lunch & shave ice Hawaii.
I have never, anywhere, heard anyone average, above average or below average discuss the 10th Amendment.
6I’ve been in a few rural diners for breakfast on road trips, and in my experience conversations among the locals are around the weather (too hot, too cool, too dry, too rainy), the prospects for the local HS football team, and “hey, that new waitress is a real looker, isn’t she” (“hey sweety, whatcha doing tonight?”).
I’ll guarantee nobody I’ve heard was discussing the Bible or the Constitution.
7I have to admit that I had to grab my copy of the Constitution and look up exactly what the 10th Amendment said (although I had a vague idea). Since I live in the middle of DC, politics is something discussed around these parts a whole lot–meaning just about every day. The big debates are about who are you going to vote for City Council and on locally raised issues that make it to the ballot. There is a corner near me where the worst tragedy in the city happened in 1922–only surpassed by the loss of life at the Pentagon on 9/11–that a developer has bought and wants to build some hulking building with overpriced condos. We are incensed about that.
Discussions of the Bible? That would be never. Standing for the anthem? Half of us would take a knee and the other half would hold our coats. I don’t know anyone in DC who has a gun and that is also something that is never discussed.
94% of us voted for Biden; so, our discussions are spirited but in no way argumentative. No, I don’t want to live anywhere else, thank you very much.
8I’ll probably be exposing my ignorance, but in googling the 10th amendment made simple, it sounds a lot like texas and their philosophy about providing for their residents with respect to basic infrastructure like power and healthcare. Do nothing cuz doing nothing is ok and cheaper and justified because that’s what repugnanticans stand for.
9Local discussions at the truck stop involve local politics (once a year, usually), weather, traffic on the bypass, weather, livestock, weather, crops, weather, health (“Yeah, my sister has lung cancer, it’s really a bitch…” “I heard ole X had that and went to M.D. Anderson…” “My doc says I gotta give up red meat. As if!!”) and weather. No mention of the national anthem, the Bible (lots of churches in town; everyone politely talks Bible *within* their church, not among them–it’s a small town, and having a religious war between one Baptist church and another would be stupid, all agree), or the 10th Amendment.
Conversations with friends (outside of here, usually in Austin) involve weather, family, books & writers (with some, none of whom are Ivy League), politics (state & national, yes, but from a distinctly non-GOP perspective), friends’ businesses, environmental stuff, and whatever hobbies they have (includes jewelry making, art, music, birdwatching, hiking, gardening, cooking, photography, volunteering.) Religious discussions are within a given group (members of the same church) except glancing references–we respect each others’ religious commitments. Most of this group has a college degree, but not all; none (in the Austin area) qualify as “Ivy League” though I have several Ivy League friends among NE writers. With whom, when we meet (rarely anymore) I discuss the business of writing, friends’ careers, family, and as always weather.
If one of my friends suddenly started dragging lunch conversations to the Bible, the national anthem and how to listen to it, and the 10th Amendment, that would end our lunches.
10Anyone citing the 10th to you should be reminded of the Necessary and Proper Clause, also known as the Elastic Clause,[1] is a clause in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution:
The Congress shall have Power… To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
i.e., whatever power and authority they need to carry out their other duties, they’ve got.
So shut up about the 10th amendment.
11My local banned discussion of the Tenth Amendment. There was just too much breakage and one of the bartenders was reduced to tears.
Now it’s just sports and who makes the best chicken.
12Way back in history, when Obama was President, there was a “Tenther Movement”, a batch of fanatics that read it to mean that anything not explicitly in the constitution was forbidden to the federal government. I suspect most of them have devolved to Trumpistas and Qanon quackers.
My favorite way to have fun with them was to point out that the President was “commander in chief of the US army and navy”, so that meant the Air Force was up to the states. Does that mean Montana gets all those nukes and Minuteman missiles, or does each state get dibs on some? Then step aside and watch the Tenthers argue with each other. Since the Air Force was originally part of the Army it belongs to the president … but it is a separate institution and so it should not even exist … etc.
It’s part of my “fun with fundamentalists” trove. Anybody who wants to claim some document or book has the absolute, total, and complete truth is fair game for it.
13When I am among the local Magahats, conversation turns eventually to guns.
I know some people who 1) would go to CPAC if they were invited and 2) will discuss a Constitutional amendmnet if given an opening, but it will be the Seventeenth.
14There was a lot more talk about the Bible than usual this week Pretty much all of it related to the golden calf story.
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