Not really but I witnessed someone in shul trying to use his economic policies as a way of controlling some children’s candy profits from an uf-ruf.
Upon walking into shul in Baltimore, I witnessed a young married guy with a kid in hand forcing 5 young kids with bags of candy to spread the wealth. His logic was that his kids were to young to have gotten as much as the older kids and he felt that his children deserved a cut so that they shouldn’t feel bad. Sounded like the famous Joe the Plumber speech about spreading the wealth around- to me.
My own similar story of how Obama economics taught me a lesson.
As a kid I was the man when it came to candy grabbing at uf-rufs. I would dive under benches, run around picking up candy bags as if I were a Sudanese family man running for a UN rice drop under a hail of bullets from Muslim radicals.
So this one particular shabbos when I was maybe 8 or so, I had a large take in my possession. I had worked hard for many years to perfect the art of uf-ruf candy grabbing and was good. So good that someone thought the other kids who were slackers and didn’t want to roll around on the floor like a moron in search of those peanut chews and red sunkist candies, should receive a percentage of my candy. Instead of merely asking me for a percentage like the government, he used a Robin Hood tactic and stole my candy in order to redistribute it to the other children who just weren’t such good workers.
Naturally I ran into shul crying to my father who was irked that someone besides him would discipline his children. So he marched out of laining to face the “farshtunkinah liberal” as he likes to say and ask him to lay of his issues.
A fight ensued and I can distinctly remember the entire shul stopping and turning around as if a bunch of flamboyant gay men had just entered a red neck bar in Wyoming. Next thing my father and this guy were going at it in back of the shul, cursing at each other. Then pushing, punching shoving and suddnely my dad grabbed the guys head by his pony tail (this was the Carlebach shul- mind you) and smashed his face into the side of the bench that you use to rest your head for a Rabbis sermon shluff.
Next thing I know, this man is gushing blood and screaming you broke my f%^%ing nose with blood pouring into my precious peanut chews and button candies as he dropped the bag and covered his bleeding face.
True story and to this day my father loves to tell it, as do his kids.