It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the

Host:
The diner lights hummed against the black winter sky, glowing like an island of warmth at the edge of a sleeping town. The smell of coffee, fried onions, and moral exhaustion hung in the air — the scent of late-night philosophy. The snow outside pressed against the window, muffling the world into stillness.

Inside, the booths were mostly empty. Jack and Jeeny sat by the window, two half-drunk cups of coffee between them. The laminated menus lay ignored, and between their elbows, a folded newspaper sat open to an opinion column — one headline circled in red pen, one quote underlined three times.

“It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral, self-righteous, bullying laziness.”
— Penn Jillette

The words lay heavy between them, louder than the jukebox humming in the corner.

Jeeny: (stirring her coffee slowly) He’s not wrong. Not entirely. But he’s not right either.

Jack: (leans back, smirking) That’s the safest opening you’ve ever given.

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) I’m just saying — he’s right that compassion shouldn’t be outsourced. But he forgets that not everyone can fix the world with their own two hands.

Jack: (nodding) True. But the point isn’t that the government shouldn’t help. It’s that we shouldn’t call it our compassion when it does.

Jeeny: (softly) Maybe compassion doesn’t care about ownership. Maybe it just wants people fed.

Jack: (leaning forward) And maybe it matters how they’re fed.

Host: The waitress walked by, refilling their mugs. The steam rose between them, coiling like the argument itself — slow, invisible, but hot enough to burn if left unchecked.

Jeeny: (quietly) So what do you think, Jack? You’d rather people starve than have the state step in?

Jack: (flatly) I’d rather people stop pretending that taxes are empathy.

Jeeny: (raising an eyebrow) And you think everyone’s going to open their wallets out of the goodness of their hearts?

Jack: (shrugs) Not everyone. But those who do — they mean it. It’s the difference between writing a check and writing a conscience.

Jeeny: (softly) You sound like you don’t believe in people at all.

Jack: (pauses, voice quieter) I believe in people. Just not in their shortcuts to virtue.

Host: The diner clock ticked loudly above them, marking time in the spaces between words. A truck rumbled by outside, headlights flashing across their reflections in the window — two silhouettes caught in the glow of conviction.

Jeeny: (after a pause) But isn’t it better to build systems that protect people, instead of depending on kindness that might never come?

Jack: (nods slowly) Systems, sure. But compassion isn’t a system. It’s risk. It’s sacrifice. It’s walking toward the pain, not outsourcing it to a bureaucrat with a clipboard.

Jeeny: (softly) That’s beautiful, but it’s also naive. You talk like we live in small villages, not cities of millions. How do you walk toward all the pain?

Jack: (quietly) You don’t. You walk toward one person. Then another. That’s the miracle of humanity — it scales from the individual up, not the other way around.

Jeeny: (gently) That sounds poetic, Jack. But people die while we wait for the miracles to scale.

Host: The rain began, sharp and sudden, streaking the windows like old film grain. The diner’s neon reflected across the wet glass — red, blue, trembling — like the flicker of two opposing truths.

Jack: (after a moment) You know what amazes me? How we’ve turned virtue into a vote. Like pressing a button every four years clears our conscience.

Jeeny: (quietly) And yet, that same vote gave women rights. Ended segregation. Built schools. Saved lives. You can’t call that laziness.

Jack: (softly) I can call it impersonal.

Jeeny: (a little sharper now) Maybe impersonal is better than indifferent.

Jack: (meeting her eyes) Or maybe it’s just colder indifference — dressed up as civic duty.

Jeeny: (leans in) And what would you have us do, Jack? Feed the homeless one sandwich at a time while the system devours them by the thousands?

Jack: (pauses) Maybe start there. Because one sandwich made by your own hands might teach you something that no tax policy ever will.

Host: The tension thickened, but it wasn’t anger — it was philosophy in heat, two hearts beating at different moral frequencies.

Jeeny: (softly now) You talk about compassion like it’s currency — like it only matters if it costs you.

Jack: (quietly) It should cost you. Otherwise, it’s charity without soul.

Jeeny: (nods slowly) I get that. But maybe that’s not fair to the people who do believe in collective compassion. Maybe they see government as a tool, not a replacement.

Jack: (after a long pause) Then it’s a tool we keep confusing for a heart.

Host: The music from the jukebox changed, an old blues song humming like wisdom through the air. Outside, a homeless man pushed a cart past the window, his silhouette blurred by the rain. Both of them fell silent.

Jeeny: (quietly) You see him?

Jack: (nods) Yeah.

Jeeny: (softly) Would you help him?

Jack: (without hesitation) Of course.

Jeeny: (after a beat) Then maybe you and I aren’t so different.

Jack: (smiles faintly) Maybe. But I’d rather help him because I choose to — not because someone else signed my name for me.

Jeeny: (gently) Choice is a privilege too, you know. Some people don’t have time to philosophize about compassion — they just need it.

Jack: (quietly) And that’s the tragedy — that compassion has to wait for permission.

Host: The rain softened, fading into a quiet rhythm like applause far away. The waitress came by with the check, setting it down gently, as if afraid to break the spell between them.

Jack: (softly) You know, I don’t hate the idea of helping. I hate the arrogance that pretends pressing “yes” on a ballot is the same as looking someone in the eyes.

Jeeny: (after a pause) Maybe it’s both. Maybe the eyes and the system. Maybe we’re all just trying to stitch together decency however we can.

Jack: (nods) Maybe.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) You know, for someone who distrusts systems, you argue like a man who still wants to save the world.

Jack: (grinning) I just want people to mean it when they say they care.

Host: The neon sign flickered, bathing their faces in pink light. Outside, the streets shimmered like rivers of thought — unending, uncertain, and full of quiet hope.

Host (closing):
The diner clock struck midnight, and the last of the coffee went cold.
The argument faded into silence, but its echo lingered — the timeless tug between personal duty and public conscience.

“It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion…”

And maybe Penn Jillette’s provocation wasn’t cruelty — but invitation.
To remember that compassion begins with touch, not policy.
That systems can feed the body,
but only people can feed the soul.

As Jack and Jeeny walked out into the wet, empty street,
the cold air hit their faces like a question:

Is goodness what you vote for — or what you do when no one’s watching?

Neither answered.
But as they passed the man with the shopping cart,
Jeeny quietly slipped her sandwich into it.

Jack didn’t speak.
He just smiled — softly, painfully —
as if realizing that maybe the truth wasn’t in the argument,
but in the gesture.