Bungee jumping, for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, involves attaching oneself by a long elastic cord to a fixed object such as a bridge, building, or crane, then jumping off to enjoy the exhilaration of free-falling. Once the cord has stretched to its maximum extent, the jumper then flies back upward.
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s what our witless Tea Party representatives are thinking about as they cheer for the country to default. We’ll all join hands and step off the fiscal bridge together, free-fall into the abyss (just for a quick peek, to see if it’s really as bad as all those people were predicting), then SPROINGGGG! We’re back where we started, safe and sound, in time for dinner. Like something out of a cartoon, we escape the clutches of doom and shoot back up to safety, dust ourselves off, and pick up where we left off.
Like many Darwin Awards entries, this sort of escapade usually begins when some half-wit shouts: “Hey y’all – watch this!!”, an utterance that may prove to be their last. We can’t stop the foolhardy from risking injury, paralysis, or even death in their pursuit of happiness, but we must stop these foolhardy Tea Party adventurers from imagining that our collective free-fall into default involves an easy return trip. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Even a “successful” bungee jump won’t get you back to the elevation you started from. At best, you’ll bounce up and down harmlessly a couple of times until the energy from the cord has dissipated. At worst, the cord will break, or you’ll smack into the side of the bridge or building and wind up with serious injuries, paralysis, or death. Hopefully your friends capture it on their cell phone video, so you can replay it as you recover in your body cast, or your next of kin realize they won’t be getting that big life insurance payout.
While I doubt that our Tea Party zealots will listen to reason as they cheer for default, someone might want to give them a quick lesson in physics.