I'm calling out rb608 for his wonderful diary here. His friends hang out with (fictional) drug dealers.
He's got nuttin. Mine hang out with an unrehabilitated (fictional, of course) subversive.
25 years ago, I was a graduate student, deeply involved in a subversive organization: my local Episcopal parish. This was the time of the contra war in Central America, and we, as a parish, felt that the Reagan administration's callous denial of amnesty to leftist organizers from Guatemala and El Salvador was not only illegal, but immoral.
So, we took the law into our own hands, and, subversives to the core, held a meeting, and chose to become a Sanctuary church. It was filmed, I'm told. There were hundreds of us there, and we voted, together, to break the law, and shelter within our church walls evil leftists, union organizers, men and women who had no love or respect for our beliefs, but who would have faced certain torture and death were they to be sent back to their home nations.
Of course, the press correctly characterized us a bunch of wild-eyed hippies. I was obviously missing something -- to me, we looked like a white-bread group of dedicated academics and would-be academics. Nevertheless, we were subversives, dedicated to nothing less than the changing of the order, challenging the laws of the land.
I was, obviously, a Bad Person to have participated in this illegal activity. I regret to inform you, however, that I feel no shame at my past, and only wish that we had been more successful in getting the policies we opposed changed. I am, I fear, an unrehabilitated subversive.
Fast forward twenty-five years, and I'm respectable member of my community, an apparently upright professional. I use that appearance to forward my subversive agenda of respect for the needy, support for the growing, and election of the fit to public office, by engaging in such subversive activities as volunteering at a local elementary school, mentoring younger employees at my place of employment, and even holding parties in my house in support of candidates for various local offices.
Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Sarah Palin have taught me, though, that my subversive and evil past will clearly illuminate those with whom I interact as fellow subversives. I'm sure that the other people in my home town will be glad to no longer have a dreadful role model like me interacting with their eight-year-old kids, the my employer will be thrilled to no longer have me helping younger people grow in their roles, and that the local Party will be greatly relieved to know that I will no longer taint promising young politicians with any stain of willingness to challenge received wisdom.