David McElroy

A man went to prison and was confused on his first night to hear prisoners calling out numbers. One guy called out, “44!” Then everybody laughed and another guy called out, “72!” Again, everybody laughed.

“What’s going on,” the new guy asked his cellmate.

“We’ve heard all these jokes so many times that we just give them numbers to make it quicker to tell them,” the prison veteran explained.

“Can I try?” the new inmate asked.

“Sure,” his cellmate said.

So he waited until a break in the laughter and he called out, “87!” There was dead silence except for a few groans. He looked at his cellmate with a confused look and asked what happened.

“Well,” said the cellmate, “some people can tell a joke and some can’t.”

It’s an old joke — and I heard it as a child — but it reminds me of political discussion online today. Almost nobody has anything of substance to say, so they just throw shallow nonsense at each other — links, memes and bumper stickers. These shallow people pretend they’re promoting what they believe in, but they’re doing nothing of the sort.

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