HUMOR: The senator chooses whether to live in heaven or hell

By David McElroy · March 31, 2012

While walking down a street one day, a U.S. senator was hit by a bus and died. His soul arrived at the gates of heaven, where he was met by St. Peter.

“Welcome to heaven,” St. Peter said. “Before we let you settle in, it seems there’s a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, so we’re not sure what to do with you.”

“No problem,” the man said. “Just let me in.”

“Well, I’d like to,” said St. Peter, “but I have orders from higher up. What we’ll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you’ll be allowed to choose where to spend eternity.”

“Seriously? Then, I’ve made up my mind. I want to be in heaven.”

“I’m sorry, but I have my orders,” St. Peter replied.

And with that, St. Peter escorted him to an elevator and the senator went down — down, down and father down — to hell. The doors opened and he found himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance, he saw a fancy clubhouse. Standing in front of it were all his old friends and other politicians who had worked with him in days gone by.

Everyone seemed very happy.

They were all dressed nicely and having a great time. They ran to greet him, shake his hand and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the taxpayers. They played a friendly game of golf and then dined on lobster, caviar and champagne.

Also present was the devil, who seemed like a very friendly guy, a sophisticated being who had a good time dancing and telling jokes. They were having such a good time that he didn’t even notice that it was time for him to visit heaven.

Everyone in hell gave him a hearty farewell and waved while the elevator took him up to heaven. The door reopened at heaven, where St. Peter was waiting for him.

“Now it’s time to visit heaven.”

So 24 hours passed, with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp, singing and worshipping the Almighty God. They had a good time and — before he realized it — the 24 hours had gone by and St. Peter returned.

“Well now, you’ve spent a day in hell and another in heaven. It’s time to choose your eternity.”

The senator thought for a minute and then he answered.

“Well, I never would have said this before,” he started. “I mean, heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.”

So St. Peter escorted him to the elevator and he went back down to hell.

When the doors of the elevator opened, he was in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He saw all his friends dressed in rags, picking up trash and putting it into black bags as more trash fell from above.

The devil came over and put his arm around the senator’s shoulder.

“I don’t understand,” stammered the senator. “When I was here yesterday, there was a golf course and clubhouse. We ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne and danced and had a great time. Now there’s just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?”

The devil grinned at him.

“Yesterday,” the devil said, “I was campaigning. Today, you’ve already voted.”

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Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

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