DRAMATIS PERSONAE, one performer in a dual role

PRINCIPAL _____ – an elementary school principal, where _____ is the name of the performer, e.g. PRINCIPAL SALMONS

MARINE LE PEN MIZELLE – 10 year old girl

(A stage, as in an elementary school auditorium, with a microphone on a stand or podium. PRINCIPAL _____ enters.)

PRINCIPAL _____

Welcome, parents, students, and shareholders. My name’s ______ (full name of performer). I’m called Principal _____ here at the Ronald Dion DeSantis Memorial Charter School of Liberty and Cryptocurrency.

Thank you for being here tonight for DeSantis Memorial’s 3rd annual Essay Contest Classic. I’d also like to thank our education partners, Sears CryptoBuck & Co., “investing IRL since 1892 and AFRL since 2023”, Publix-AlphaSense, “putting AI back in agriculture”, and last but not least, Heritage NeuroSolutions, where “if you don’t like what you’re hearing here, forget we said anything”.

Folks, I tell you what, I’ve been in this job for only 5 months but I have never felt more blessed than I do at DeSantis Memorial. Every morning, I get to pull up the desk-cam master and see the smiling faces of our future. It’s a future identical to the present, because we’ve finally created the perfect society. As you all know, our school was named in honor of our late and dear President DeSantis, who inspired our guiding principle: faith-based free markets.

Through a combination of faith-based free markets and the determination to purge our culture of the spineless wokeism that ran wild through our nation a couple of decades ago, we have created a learning environment that puts our kids at the center of everything. DeSantis Memorial is the fiery crucible of the future leadership of our Divine Republic. And if you don’t already, I know that you’ll agree once you hear what these students have to say up here today.

(Looks down to read from a device in his hand)

Ok, so each student chose his or her own topic from a list of Board approved topics, and each student wrote his or her essay competitively without any assistance from parents or teachers.

(Looks back up at the audience)

So, if their essays are good or if they’re bad, well they can only blame themselves, because that’s how life works. Right?

(Looks back down to continue reading)

Our first reader tonight is rated 5-stars in the Koch Brothers Learner Productivity Index… That’s impressive! I didn’t know that until just now. Wow! And she’s trending toward the graduating class of 2048. Put your hands together, for Marine Mizelle.

(PRINCIPAL _____ walks off stage while clapping. Stops just off stage, still visible to the audience, and puts on a long-haired wig, then re-enters stage as MARINE LE PEN MIZELLE. Appears a little uncomfortable and begins to speak to the audience with unusual intonation, pronouncing “capitalism” with emphasis on “ism”, for example.)

MARINE LE PEN MIZELLE

Thaaanks, Principal _____. My name is Marine Le Pen Mizelle and I’m 10 years old. My essay is about capitalism and what it means to me.

(Looks down to read from a device in her hand)

What Capitalism Means To Me, by Marine Mizelle.

InfoWarTableBot says the definition of capitalism is as follows. Quote. Capitalism is the economic manifestation of liberty. To the extent that force is initiated in a social system, that system is then not capitalist to that extent, by definition. Such a black and white dichotomy is of no use to societal Lib-Dem parasites, who busy themselves redefining capitalism into a slur descriptive of any nominally organized scheme of thievery they do not control. End Quote.

(Sweeping a hand in gesture to the audience)

As you all know, most Lib-Dem parasites were enrolled in market-managed de-Nazification programs when the Special Police Operation Against Wokeist Traitors began in 2033. And, that the rest of the Lib-Dems were deported to the South China Seastead Penal Colony in cooperation with our ally, Kim Ju-ae and her United Korea. Even though there are no more Lib-Dems to spread lies,  I still think InfoWarTableBot’s definition of capitalism rings true. But capitalism also means something to me personally, as a free, productive person, too. It really means more than one thing to me as you will see in the rest of this essay, in which I talk about 4 things capitalism means to me. To conclude this introduction paragraph, my InfoWarTableBot is basically right, although there is more to it than what it said.

First of all, to me, capitalism means greater choice. People think it is really great that capitalism means more choices in things you can buy. Emitters are a good example. My dad thinks it’s just great that we have so many different kinds of emitters (he calls them light bulbs, because he’s old). One time I went with him to Home Depot to buy new emitters for our home lighting system. He spent a very long time looking at the boxes and handling them and reading the numbers and words like 60W Equivalent A19 and 750 lumens and non-dimmable daylight medium base LED. After about 10 minutes, my dad was so happy about all of the choices that he said “well, this is just fuggin great”. On the car ride home he explained that ‘fuggin’ – spelled with two Gs – is a synonym for ‘very’ that adults use when they’re very happy. In summary, more options to choose from mean happier, freedom-loving patriots circulating Stablecoin, like Hayekoin, through the economy.

The second thing that capitalism means to me, is freedom. Some people say that freedom is the greatest gift of America to the world. But not everyone in the world likes it. Before my grandpa Gary died in a botched upload, he talked about how the Commies of old Russia were vanquished when we invited a man named Boris Yeltsin to Randall’s grocery store in Texas and showed him a refrigerated display case of Jell O (said as two words) Pudding Pops. Grandpa Gary said Yeltsin was a Lib-Dem Commie but that he was so amazed by the Jell O that he commanded Russia to stop being Lib-Dems and to embrace freedom. I don’t really know who Yeltsin was, or what pudding pops were, or what a grocery store was, but I think what my grandpa Gary was trying to say is that freedom means buying anything you want, even if you don’t exactly know what it is or what it does or don’t really want it. And also, everyone loves freedom, except for Lib-Dems. Lib-Dems love taking freedom away, and they are the death of success, and I’m high-key happy I don’t know any. To summarize, freedom means buying the exact thing you want, whenever you want. And this happens with capitalism.

A third thing that capitalism means to me is that anybody can have any job they want if someone is willing to pay them to do it and they work hard for it. For example, you can be a clown. When I was 8, my dad got a Tasker as a clown for my birthday party. Clown Man arrived on time even though he told my dad that his wife was pregnant, (pausing, then as if explanation is needed) with a baby. And while Clown Man was making these fuggin cute 3D printed butterflies at my party (looking up from device to address audience, excitedly) the kind that light up, flutter around, and sing like real butterflies… (pausing, then looking back down to device) Anyway, while he was printing those, Mrs. Clown txted him that she was at the ER in labor with the clown baby, but Clown Man wouldn’t leave my party because he wanted to work hard and earn the right to live free with his Mrs. Clown and clown baby. The lesson I learned that day is that if you work hard like Mr. Clown, one day you won’t have to do work at a birthday party while your wife is experiencing a major medical event, and then you can TaskRabbit someone else to be the clown at your kid’s birthday party. In short, as long as someone loses, everyone wins.

Fourthly, capitalism means that you can make the fullest valuation of your worth as a person. Like the Florida State motto says, “Know your worth and then add tax. Because when you know your worth, you’ll stop giving people discounts.” Without capitalism, it is impossible to calculate human capital, or to leverage it with other forms of capital, like financial, social, moral, and legal capital. And without these other forms of capital, human capital is wasted on activities and interests that don’t generate intergenerational wealth, like social emotional learning, formalist art, critical race theory, and small university literary magazines*. Lib-Dems love these things and every night I thank God in Heaven that the Lib-Dems lost the Culture War, (with fear) I muh…I mean Special Military Operation, in 2035.

In summation, as you can clearly see, capitalism means many things to me. It means choice, freedom, jobs, and self-worth. These are just four things that capitalism means for me. Other things that I didn’t think about until later include being able to purchase pure water and air, having holidays for everything like Florida NFT Day and Florida Crayola Day and Free Market Values Week, and also extracting resources from the ground, like trees and clean-coal that otherwise would just be wasted.

(Emphasizing “I” and “you” while gesturing to oneself or the audience, respectively) Now, I ask you to think about what capitalism means to you. You might be surprised, but I know you’ll be free, and fuggin’ happy.

(Looking up to address the audience)

Thaaanks!

(Curtsies, then walks off stage. Removes wig and reenters the stage, clapping, as PRINCIPAL _____.)

PRINCIPAL _____

Thank you, Marine. That was a wonderful essay, and on such an important topic. I don’t know about 5 stars though. Maybe 3 and a half. But what a promising student she is. Don’t you agree? Wonderful.

(Clearing throat)

However, I am obliged to read this txt I received a moment ago.

(Looking down to read from device)

“The School Board of Shareholders gives notice that Marine Le Pen Mizelle is in violation of section 4.2 of the Saving our Children from Indecent Speech Act of 2029 on 4 counts. The Shareholders hereby formally condemn said violations… (scrolling on device) yada yada yada  … accordingly the Board shares owned by Marine’s parents, Chet Mizelle and Kassidy Wimble Mizelle, will be purchased back from them at a patriotically-adjusted market price, and Marine and her three brothers, Ronald Reagan Mizelle, Victor Orban Mizelle, and – (said under breath) wow –  Voldemort Putin Mizelle, also known as Wally Mizelle, will be required to attend the Magic Kingdom de-Nazification Charter Camp for the balance of the school year.“

(Looking up at audience, wagging finger with mock seriousness)

So, let that be a lesson to you kids. Behave or it’s off to Disney!

(Laughing nervously)

Ok, well, joking aside, on a different note, I’ve since learned that only one student entered the Essay Contest Classic this year. I guess I’m pleased to announce the winner by default of the Ronald Dion DeSantis Memorial Charter School of Liberty and Cryptocurrency 3rd Annual Essay Contest Classic. Give it up, once more, for Marine Mizelle!

(Clapping)

Congratulations, Marine!

(Inquiringly looking off stage)

Come on out.

(Addressing someone off stage)

Where is she? Is she…  Oh. The TeslaRail station?

(Addressing audience)

OK, well, it seems that Miss Mizelle has already caught the train to Disney. So.

(Searching for something to say)

Um, you know, it was our late, great leader President DeSantis himself who once said that if there’s a chance someone is an enemy, it’s best to err on the side of caution. Those were wise words. Well. I think that concludes tonight’s contest. I hope you found it productive and worth your time, despite what just happened.

(Searchingly looking at the audience)

Perhaps… perhaps we can all take comfort in Marine’s own words. You’ll recall that she just said “as long as someone loses, we all win”. Well said, Marine.  Well said.

(Pause. Then snapping out of it)

OK! Before we wrap up here I just want to remind everyone that if you have a fifth grader who signed up for safety patrol next year, we need to have their KidCarry permit on file in the office before the first day of class, and they need to bring their own sidearm in good working order. If (looking incredulous), for some reason, your child doesn’t have a sidearm, they can always check one out in the media center on the first day of class. There is a deposit. One hundred and thirty Hayekoin, which you’ll get back at the end of the year if you return the piece in good working order. Ok? Ok, thank you again for coming. Be safe.