i_respectfully

I Respectfully Disagree

They've been complaining about the elephants for years. What kind of circus, goes the argument, has no elephants? A good, clean one, I say. Ours, I say.

It's the elephants that complain, mostly. Because they want in. And then there's a motley assortment of outsiders. The public. Customers. People who don't know what it's like on the inside. I do know. I've been with the circus all my life, and we have never let elephants in. Dirty, noisy beasts. The other animals wouldn't put up with them. That's what Dickie says. He says the other animals won't have them. They would just cause trouble. Dissension. Fighting. Great, big heaps of elephant crap. That kind of thing. Can't run a good circus like that. Dickie's the guy who tosses me my fish when I toot my horn and clap my flippers. I agree with Dickie. Not because he gives me fish, of course. For objective, independent reasons.

Funny thing, though. The ringmaster got enough no-elephant complaints that he decided to take a poll of the other circus animals. According to the poll, almost all of them said they were in favor of letting elephants in! Lions, tigers. bears, horses, dogs. Even clowns! Personally, I'm withholding judgment for the present. I insist on reading the report before I reject it. This sets me off from my peers and is a point of pride.

Let's see. Mm-hmm. The respondents were a bunch of circus animals. No one with the power to deliver an actual fish. Also, ... no consideration of what everyone knows, the way it's always been, or how we do it here. Serious statistical flaws, those. Therefore, I respectfully disagree with the conclusions of this seriously flawed report.

Ah, here comes another fish.