Halloween is a big party. It is the third biggest political
party in America. This annual holiday is a nonpartisan event, but
politics shows up like everyone else — cloaked
and masked. Not everyone parties with politics, but liberals are
most inclined and best equipped. They have the best reasons to love
Oct. 31. Here they are:
1. Halloween compels diversity. Everyone feels
pressure to create a unique costume. Consequently, everyone becomes
artsy. Halloween mandates that you pretend to be something you are
not, much as red-state liberals do during political
elections.
Downside: The creative diversity gets competitive (read:
unfair and mean). People often pick their costumes in order to win
prizes and contests such as “Wildest Costume” or “Best John Edwards
Lookalike.” Such contests discriminate against those who cannot
afford $400 haircuts, paternity tests, and public humiliation
(assuming they do not know Maury Povich).
2. It is an opportunity to express your inner
child. Liberals have a thing for psychobabble,
and psychobabble and psychopaths go well together. Halloween is for
kids, who are not yet fully able to distinguish between reality and
make-believe. Any adult who loves Halloween is someone with an
inner child that needs expressing. Such people have aged but not
completely matured. Halloween lets them prove it.
Downside: If you express your inner child too much, your
own children may start to view you as their equal and not as an
authority figure. This could make it harder for you to teach them
how to recycle and how to respect every culture other than their
own.
3. It alleviates hunger. Halloween is the only
day of the year when millions of Americans go out of their way to
feed complete strangers. They buy food for the explicit purpose of
giving it to people they may or may not know and who may or may not
need it. If every day were Halloween, famine would disappear (as
would memories of Live Aid).
Downside: The downside to
the “mi casa, su
candy” pledge is the second element. Candy
contributes to childhood obesity, which Michelle Obama says is
really, really bad.
4. Ask, and ye shall receive. On Halloween, all
you have to do to get free goodies is knock on a door. In other
words, all you have to do to get other people’s stuff is ask for
it, and these people will happily give it to you out of social
obligation. Halloween is welfare without the paperwork.
Downside: Most Halloween goodies come wrapped in paper or
plastic, which environmentally unconscious people will turn into
litter.
5. It has no patriotic or Christian undertones.
Its lack of nationalistic and Judeo-Christian themes brings people
together. Halloween is a perfect day for internationalists
(citizens of the world) and devil worshipers (citizens of the
netherworld) to unite. This must be why so many people want to hear
“We Are the World” at Slayer concerts.
Downside: It is not easy to be a Satanic humanist who
slaughters humans. At least that has been my experience.
6. It promotes walking over driving.
Trick-or-treating is a neighborhood activity. By walking
— not driving — from house
to house, trick-or-treaters reduce carbon emissions and help save
the environment.
Downside: Walking is not possible for the wheelchair-bound
and other physically disadvantaged groups. For them, ramps and/or
candy delivery services are preferable. Check with your local Meals
on Wheels.
7. Gay activists love it. For various reasons,
Halloween is big in this community. The day offers an occasion for
sexual nonconformists to act not as “someone else” but as
caricatures of themselves, openly and without apprehension. If you
want to dress in drag, you can do so without fear of harmful social
repercussions.
Downside: Drag queens are a form of hierarchy.
8. It allows for witch-hunting. In a
pre-Halloween television ad last October, then-Republican Senate
candidate (and self-confessed former “dabbler” in witchcraft)
Christine O’Donnell declared, “I’m not a witch”
— a line so effective in establishing innocence
that thousands of lives could have been spared during the
Inquisition had anyone thought of it at the time.
Downside: None.
9. It’s an excuse for feminists to flout their
femininity. Even the bra-burning Gloria Steinem can show a
little skin on Halloween, the one night of the year when all women
can dress as strippers without damaging their ideological
credibility. Indeed, on no other day is it so easy to reconcile
women’s rights and fishnet tights. You can stand for the former and
strut in the latter.
Downside (for men): Feminists don’t make for the best eye
candy.
That’s why liberals love Halloween. Though it may be just
a one-night stand, the two are made for each other. The pretense of
disguise lets liberals be themselves. Luckily the affair happens
but once a year.
