I have tears streaming down my face. Tears of laughter.

[Pacifist Patriot]

Have you ever eavesdropped on the offspring of liberals playing Monopoly? My sides are splitting. Four boys ages 10-15.

Here are a few things I manage to overhear while making dinner tonight.

1. They vote to raise the luxury tax.

2. They decide to make utilities public property and rents are evenly divided if anyone lands on one.

3. Thirty minutes have passed so they decide to institute a cost of living raise and passing go now gets you $220.

4. One of them mentions the bank is running low on money and wants to know what happens if the bank runs out. Another reads the directions from the box that says the bank cannot go bankrupt, you have to record your transactions on a piece of paper until the bank has paper cash again. Pipes up an 11 year old. "Screw that, we're not doing any bailouts." Which amuses the fifteen year old because he knows the eleven year old doesn't know what he's saying.

5. They arrange a payment plan for one of the players when he lands on a property with a hotel so he can stay in the game.

6. One of them gets a community chest card saying they've won a prize in a beauty contest. "I sure hope it had a talent component and wasn't based solely on looks."

7. One of them gets a community chest card saying they inherited $100. They made him pay each of them $10 in "inheritance tax."

8. One of them gets a community chest card saying he has to pay hospital fees of $100. They discuss the merits of instituting an insurance plan to cover the next person who gets the card.

I noticed the goal of the game was to see how long they could keep everyone solvent because it was not as much fun when you lost players. They are clearly having much more fun negotiating, bargaining and changing the rules.

I think I've ruptured my side. :rofl:

I'm not kidding. It's freaking hilarious to listen to, especially because the ten and eleven year old haven't a clue so the thirteen and fifteen year old are having to explain their reasoning. Pretty cool actually.

EDITED TO ADD: Please folks, this is nothing more than a bunch of kids having fun making up their own rules and a couple of them just parroting the things they hear the adults in their lives say. They're goofing around. It's so funny because we can apply meaning to it that they just can't understand.

[mike_c]

1. Occupy Park Place!

:rofl:

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. LOL! That is one thing I have yet to hear. No comments about protesting.

[pinboy3niner]

5. Better keep that 'Get Out of Jail Free' card handy :)

[Pacifist Patriot]

7. I've kind of been hoping they'd go that route, but so far not a single mention of ....

99%, Occupy (fill in blank) or getting arrested for protesting.

[Ruby the Liberal]

31. !!

:rofl:

[Evasporque]

86. DUZY! lol...

Just stay at Park Place through the whole game and never pay rent....

You WIN!

[juajen]

2. That's really neat. Wish I'd heard that.

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. LOL! One of them just got the "you're chairman of the board" card....

that says you have to pay each player $50. He handed them the money saying, "thank you for your vote."

Edited to add. That would be the smart ass fifteen year old by the way.

[Capitalocracy]

haha, they've rejected the purpose of the game (monopoly)

Occupy Boardwalk!

[tavalon]

43. Yep, they are anti-capitalist, maybe even socialists

and a great bunch of kids. If these are the norm, the kids will be all right.

[lunatica]

4. That's funny! Inventing a socialist money game!

They are the 99! Thinking outside the box!

[Pab Sungenis]

89. Strangely enough....

...that's how Monopoly started.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord's_Game

[Scuba]

6. If only the 1% realized that when one player has all the money, it's "game over".

[tavalon]

44. Yeah, they should ponder that

[TheMadMonk]

61. So, just shuffle the cards and start a new game.

Also known as total warfare.

It's the way it's always worked. One group achieves overwhealming power. Concentrates it in a body too small to defend itself and goes batshit crazy, resulting in everyone else going batshit crazy as they kick the living shit out of their opressors.

Survive the anarchy (shuffling) and start again.

[tavalon]

67. How about trying some cooperative Democracy

or even cooperative anarchy. Why does it have to be the same each time. Isn't that just the definition of insanity? I live in a communal household (in the sixties, it would have been called a commune) and am in close contact with larger groups who share the vision. Why can't such a vision work? Communities cooperating?

[TheMadMonk]

79. Le sigh.

:sarcasm:

[stevedeshazer]

8. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a while.

:rofl:

Thanks!

[Pacifist Patriot]

11. It's still going on. I was going to go crawl in bed and ice my foot while watching tv.

This has got to be far more entertaining than anything I'd find on television.

[Arkansas Granny]

19. I don't blame you. I wouldn't want to miss any of that either.

:hi:

[OffWithTheirHeads]

10. I'm having a really hard time believing this but if it's true

there is hope for the future

[Pacifist Patriot]

13. Probably the funniest thing about is the cluelessness.

I don't for a second think they truly understand the implications of what they are doing. The younger kids are clearly parroting things they've heard the adults around them say. These kids are just goofing around. The greatest appeal is probably that they are flouting the rules. The humor comes from my applying meaning to what they are doing.

[AnneD]

92. In our famlies homes...

my brothers and mine, we get togather to play board and card games. We don't refer to the instructions as rules but rather suggestions. Anyone can play by the rules but it is always much more fun to make up your own. Wish we had recorded some of our more epic matches.

Uno is the most competitive. It gets cut throat and blood relations means nothing. :spray:

[Pacifist Patriot]

96. We used to go for blood with Uno but then discovered....

Skip-Bo.

Now there is some serious nastiness. :evilgrin:

[AnneD]

98. You have to ....

draw a line in the sand somewhere. :evilgrin:

[LuckyLib]

105. Skip-Bo is the BEST!

[itsallhappening]

14. I'm with you.

[Pacifist Patriot]

15. See my response above. I'm not crediting these kids with anything special.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

27. Well, if this is true, you should be crediting these kids.

If only we could get adults to be so responsible.

I'm going to go ahead and rec this cause if these kids are really doing this, you just made my week.

[tavalon]

45. Really? I am

They may not fully understand but they've absorbed more than you are giving them credit for and you've started them on a path that could lead to them thinking outside the box about so many things. The box is a mind killer.

[PA Democrat]

73. Except they ARE showing that they have learned to question authority

when they sense that the rules of the game, so to speak, are unfair. That is a great lesson to teach our kids.

[RaleighNCDUer]

78. You should be. Far too many kids would never consider changing

the rules to meet their own goals - what it says in the box is THE LAW, and you DON'T get to make it up as you go along.

Not only are they allowing themselves to change the rules, they are doing it without fighting and resorting to "but the RULES say..."

That's some cool kids.

[Mimosa]

12. LOL! Best OP in weeks! n/t

[bigmonkey]

16. Maybe they're getting the real, original goal of the game?

Didn't I read this year that the inventor of Monopoly was a socialist who wanted to teach socialist values? No, not kidding:

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa121997.htm

(Obviously just one source of many on this)

Section about Monopoly's precursors:

"On January 5, 1904, Lizzie J. Magie, a Quaker woman from Virginia, received a patent (view patent) for a board game. Lizzie Magie belonged to a tax movement led by Philadelphia-born Henry George; the movement supported the theory that the renting of land and real estate produced an unearned increase in land values that profited a few individuals (landlords) rather than the majority of the people (tenants). Henry George proposed a single federal tax based on land ownership believing a single tax would discourage speculation and encourage equal opportunity.

"Lizzie Magie wanted to use her game, which she called "The Landlord's Game" as a teaching device for George's ideas. The Landlord's Game and Monopoly are very similar, except all the properties in Magie's game are rented not acquired as in Monopoly and instead of names like "Park Place" and "Marvin Gardens" one finds "Poverty Place", "Easy Street" and "Lord Blueblood's Estate". The objectives of each game are also very different. In Monopoly the idea of the game is to buy and rent or sell property so profitably that one becomes the wealthiest player and eventually monopolist. In The Landlord's Game, the object was to illustrate how (under the system of land tenure) the landlord had an advantage over other enterprisers and to show how the single tax could discourage speculation.

"The game spread as a common folk game among the Quakers and proponents of the single tax, usually copied instead of purchased, with each new maker adding their favorite city street names as they drew or painted their boards (usually on table cloth.) It was also common for each new maker to alter or write new rules. As the game spread from community to community, the name would change from "The Landlord's Game" to "Auction Monopoly" and then just "Monopoly"."

[KT2000]

17. That's hilarious!

And sounds like a lot more fun that cut-throat Monopoly!

[baldguy]

18. Someone should think up rules for a socialist version of Monopoly.

Sounds like the kids have a good start.

[Auggie]

20. You might have a new game here... Progressive Monopoly!

[FloridaJudy]

60. There was a Marxist version of monopoly

Called "Class Struggle" that we used to play in the 70's. Now might be a good time to bring it back.

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/game_rules.php

[Pacifist Patriot]

21. Uh oh. Youngest player's been knocked out.

Negotiations over something or other seem to be breaking down between two of the remaining three. I think we may be seeing the beginning of the end here.

Edited for grammar

[adigal]

24. I bet you they understand a lot more than people here are giving them credit for

My kids, three good liberals, have sounded the way they still do since they were 10 - and they are 21, 20 and 17 now!! A good upbringing really sticks!!!

[Pacifist Patriot]

26. Some of them do and it also depends upon what is being said at any given time.

It's too bad I couldn't record the thing. But since it's been going on for almost three hours now.....

[starroute]

22. Why do you think they were just goofing around?

The 10 and 11 year old maybe, but I know that when I was 13, I watched all the presidential debates and distributed campaign literature for John Kennedy on election day. And by the time I was 15, I was thoroughly fed up with the administration for having handed the communication satellite system over to private enterprise.

Thirteen to fifteen year olds may not understand everything that's going on, but the bright ones understand a lot of it better than most grownups. They're soaking stuff up like a sponge and starting to fit the pieces together -- and they have a really strong sense of morality.

So give them some credit for knowing what they're about.

[Pacifist Patriot]

25. As I said, the 13 and 15 year old are explaining their reasoning.

So that's cool. The fifteen year old is VERY politically aware. But I can't honestly say a group of kids are sitting around a Monopoly board and deliberately setting out to institute a socialist version. It's just not transpiring like that.

[Darth_Kitten]

23. That is funny....and very creative.

:D

[FirstLight]

28. perfect!

...and BTW... my 8 & 9 year olds play that game in a similar way, loans and payment plans, etc... ;)

It's good to know liberalism takes hold at a youthful age :evilgrin:

[Irishonly]

29. I only wish you could have taped it

Great kids.

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ruby the Liberal]

32. This story is priceless!

Thanks for adding it here.

[Skidmore]

33. Do you mind if I copy this and send it to my daughter

who has nascent Monopoly players of her own?

[Pacifist Patriot]

36. Sure.

[Brigid]

34. If I were in your place . . .

I wouldn't be posting about this. I would be prostrate on the bed, the pillow over my head, howling with laughter. The kids would be too busy staring at me as if I had lost my mind to play. I love that the kids are making up their own rules. :rofl:

[rug]

35. Wonderful! I wonder how republican kids would play it.

Baltic Place would ge gentrified at $1500 a month.

Water Works would be sold to a Saudi consortium.

You need to roll 13 to get out of jail.

[JHB]

87. You need to roll 13 to get out of jail...

...but the value of your properties adds to your roll total. Have to pay the lawyers, though.

[intheflow]

88. Republican kids would never question the rules

and play it exactly the way it's written.

[Jamastiene]

37. I want to vote for them for president one day.

K&R

[Lucinda]

38. Awesome.

:toast:

[midnight]

39. K&R

[ladywnch]

40. thank you for giving me hope for America's youth!

I know they were just playing around, BUT, they were working to SOLVE PROBLEMS!!!!......to keep everyone in the game........OMG!.....what a great thing your kids have learned from you!!!!

KUDOS.

[Dawson Leery]

41. kick

[tavalon]

42. These are your offspring?

Small ears hear well and yeah, some of it is good parroting, but much of it is good parenting. Those kids have been raised well.

[Demeter]

46. That is the Best, Most Heart-Warming Story I've Heard in Years

and to think that 10 years ago, I wouldn't have had enough background to understand it. I've learned so much from all the knowledgeable, patient and helpful people on DU, that I can never repay.

[Pacifist Patriot]

53. Well I also have to admit.

Most of my warm fuzzies came from memories of playing board games when I was a child. It was heart warming to see them huddled around the table playing a game that didn't involve monitors or controllers. Reminded me of fun times I had when I was their age. The rain against the window and the smell of bacon frying in the pan just added to the whole experience.

[Demeter]

56. Our family of 4 kids played lots of games, too

I'm in a condo community, trying to get a games night together, and people don't know how to play Scrabble, or Trivial Pursuit, or card games....nothing!

And those are the American born....(we have a lot of foreign students and recent emigres).

[lucca18]

47. Love it! Thank you. nt

[WillyT]

48. Most Excellent !!! - K & R !!!

:rofl:

:hi:

:kick:

[robinlynne]

49. fantastic!

[Papagoose]

50. Sounds like you're doing an awesome job of bringing them up right!

Kudos for raising socially aware kids.

My 16 year-old daughter is the most cut-throat Monopoly player I've ever seen, but she is a good kid.

[white_wolf]

51. I vote your children run for office.

They sound a lot smarter and like better people than our current Congress.

[mehrrh]

52. monopoly

I love that story!

[Gman]

54. And they're not vegging in front of the TV or video games

cool

[Deep13]

55. That cartoon guy with the mustache show go directly to jail...

...for insider trading, cooking the books and short selling client stocks.

[AllyCat]

57. This rocks!!! Great kids...imaginative, compassionate...how many years before they

can run for public office?

[Odin2005]

58. Your kids are TEH AWESOME!!!

:D

[malaise]

59. Truly gorgeous

:hi:

[Nye Bevan]

62. Wow! Those kids are almost too good to be true! (nt)

[orbitalman]

63. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..... n/t

[pmorlan1]

64. lol

I have a game called Anti-Monopoly. lol

[lonestarnot]

65. Yeah. Very amusing. Thanks for sharing!

K & R!

[LoZoccolo]

66. Cool story, bro. n/t

[kag]

68. I can see my kids doing something like that.

15 year old son and 13 year old daughter. Good liberals, both of them.

Thanks for the story. I laughed almost as hard as you did.

And good job bringing up the kids. You sound like an excellent parent. :fistbump:

[liberal N proud]

69. Maybe they should publish a set of rules for Liberal Monopoly

Call it No-opoly

[Pacifist Patriot]

70. I'm thinking someone with an entrepreneurial spirit could take this idea and run with it.

Surely there has to be a way to construct a similar, but not identical game that espouses cooperation yet still results in a winner. I just don't have that kind of brain...or energy.

[Codeine]

71. Rrrrright. nt

[LWolf]

72. They're fixing all the obvious flaws as they go.

:rofl:

I hope they grow up to be legislators.

[babydollhead]

74. that's Great! We had "Barbie Nation" in our basement,

It was my 3 kids and the neighbor kids, 6-13 years old, they were so funny that i made tape recordings of their talk. A few had power issues, took over the store, evicted people, and had an armed guard( a luke sky walker doll gripping a gun. I broke off his gun arm on night(it's my house)

They had a three week long funeral for my brother in law( he was cremated, so the kids couldn't wrap their minds around it, they used his obituary photo, laid it out in an open casket, and proceed to mourn him in their own way. There was even a "professional mourner" so that the others could carry on with their accessories and fashion.

My specialty was building wheel chairs for the disabled Ken dolls( man height, so they could still dance with the women. I tried to get a local museum (the Mattress factory in Pittsburgh) to let them set up "The Nation" and we would have the recordings looping, but, alas, they said no. The kids were boys and girls, older brothers and younger sisters, they worked out issues that were going on in their lives, like divorce.

[Pacifist Patriot]

77. That's really neat!

[AnneD]

94. My young daughter....

and my best friend's daughter built the Barbie spa and retreat-in Hawaii of course. The spa was my foot soak and massager-filled with water and dish soap.

Later that week they made a beautiful fairy/bug house. I got pictures of both. The fairy house was so beautiful, bedecked with flowers, twiggs and berries.

BTW, we lived in the mountains and I could not afford cable tv but I think they didn't miss it.

[LynneSin]

75. My recommendation - give them the game of Risk and see how they change it

World Domination can bring out the best and the worst of us progressives.

[Pacifist Patriot]

76. They have it and I've seen them play it, but I've never eavesdropped.

I'm too busy getting irritated at the little pieces left all over the floor for me to step on. ;-)

[kentauros]

82. If "pieces everywhere" is a problem

give them a copy of Nuclear War instead (it's a card game) and just as fun for world domination! Especially the "If I can't win, NOBODY WINS!!!" rule :evilgrin:

[lunasun]

80. We had not played the game for awhile as a family so we read the rules

out loud....when we got to the part that the banks can not go bankrupt we all laughed and laughed
The littlest ones sense this say what you will even if not fully understood

[slackmaster]

81. When I was a kid my friends and I expanded Monopoly to make it more fun

You could put up to two hotels on a property. We had to create money in denominations up to $10,000.

Then we discovered girls...

[Nye Bevan]

83. So you were like the opposite of those perfect progressive children in the OP.

Shame on you. :spank:

[Pacifist Patriot]

84. Perfect?

Progressive maybe, perfect? :rofl:

[slackmaster]

106. It was 1968. The concept of "progress" had a different meaning then.

;-)

[Pacifist Patriot]

85. I think your last sentence is the best in this thread so far.

So very true.

[mistertrickster]

90. Funny stuff! Brought a smile to my day. nt

[Atypical Liberal]

91. There is A LOT to be learned from this!

I noticed the goal of the game was to see how long they could keep everyone solvent because it was not as much fun when you lost players. They are clearly having much more fun negotiating, bargaining and changing the rules.

Just like in real life. If you financially destroy everyone around you, suddenly life is a lot less "fun" as there are no consumers left to buy your products.

[Warpy]

93. You've raised a brood of budding socialists

Good work!

[Pacifist Patriot]

95. *snort* Socialists who want to earn big bucks playing Premier League soccer.

Ah, life is so full of glorious contradictions.

[Warpy]

97. Nothing wrong with that

as long as they know they'll have to pay their taxes to support a country that allows them to do that.

[Pacifist Patriot]

102. Nope, I have no problem being the mother of the next Tim Howard.

[BrendaBrick]

99. Young people changing the "rules of the game"

Now THAT'S hopeful!!!!! :-)

[a2liberal]

100. K&R (n/t)

[intheflow]

101. Absolutely hysterical!

Shared on my fb page, hope you don't mind. :hi:

[JustAnotherGen]

103. That is the funniest thing ever!

:rofl:

It reminds of being at my UU Church when I lived in Rochester NY and my pastor asking us to greet each other and tell each other what we believe in. . . and a little girl - no more than five comes up and shakes my hand and say, "Hi! Im so and so. I believe in the League of Women Voters and the ACLU".

You can't make these things up when you live in liberal land and surround your children with life positive beliefs! :pals:

[Pacifist Patriot]

104. LOL! I can totally hear a UU kid saying that!

[Vadem]

108. ROFLMAO! Kids are so smart! That reminds me of my then

six-year-old son, now 47, who asked our rabbi what we were going to do about nuclear proliferation! The rabbi did a sermon on my son's conversation with him.

Love your story. My brother, when we were kids, was a Monopoly fanatic. He wanted my sister and me to play Monopoly with him for hours! I can hardly stand to play Monopoly to this day!

:fistbump: for all of our smart, progressive kids!! May they ever thusly be!

:bounce:

[babylonsister]

107. Just ran across this...

:)

[WoodyD]

109. Made my day!

What a great post - thanks, and I look forward to two things:

1. Smart kids like yours being old enough to vote, and

2. Voting for smart kids like yours.

[sulphurdunn]

110. The problem with this extended analogy

is that real life isn't a Monopoly game. Real life is fixed, rigged and unfair. What leads you to believe that replacing the current fake monopoly elite with children wouldn't be an improvement? Your wise 15 year old is the reason the global economy is in the toilet. Bring on the 13 year olds! :bounce:

[Pacifist Patriot]

111. I do believe you are reading waaayyy too much into this.

[sulphurdunn]

112. The only problem I had

with it was that it wasn't funny.

[Pacifist Patriot]

113. Then just say so. As it is, your comment was perplexing at best.

No need to be a jerk and make stupid (and inaccurate) assumptions about the fifteen year old.

[sulphurdunn]

114. Touchy aren't we?

When I read your comments it was immediately apparent than you are one of those obtuse people who think themselves witty. It seems you are also crude, thin skinned and silly. Have a nice day. :)