(From a recent post at Bring It On! Special thanks to Tom Baker for posting this there.)
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly- man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation costs because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or an unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the country would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state-funded university.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax- payer funded roads.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.
The house didn’t have electricity until some big- government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberals made sure Dad could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of himself, just like I have.”-
This November, Change the Course.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 5:17 am and is filed under Common Sense, General, Politics.
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September 21st, 2006 at 4:49 am
I’ve posted this before, too, and I am always glad to see it again. It deserves to become a well-known lesson in every home!
September 27th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
Great piece!
It seems like excessive money sometimes blinds people to what got them there in the first place.
Those in power are only conservative for one reason – because they are in power. Their only fear is losing that power, and hence, they fight viciously against anything that threatens the status quo.
This same reasoning is behind the movement to “bring America back to its roots” like it was in the “good ol’ 1950s.”
September 30th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Yes. I’m linking to this one..
Wil, was that the 1950’s when we were all terrified of ‘the bomb’, blacks didn’t get a vote (has that changed? I wonder) and we sprayed ddt on the vegetables and ate wonderbread filled with chalk?
😉
You might like to read some of Robert Anton Wilsons stuf on ‘neophilia’ and ‘neophobia’.. Guess which way people tend to vote.
October 6th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
I like this piece, but… it goes a bit too far in my opinion. It’s easy to jump on all conservatives based on the (admittedly extreme) corruption at the top of their party’s stack at the moment.
But keep in mind that what makes this country great is the tug-of-war between the extremes of the two ideologies. That’s why the lack of checks-and-balances in our government today is what really damages us, more than any particular corrupt person or small group of people in charge of one branch of government.
As much as right now it FEELS like everything conservative is evil, keep in mind that the logical conclusion of liberalism is communism, a system of government which can not work in any group so large that its members can no longer manage to be personally familiar with the majority of the rest of its members. Human nature prevents us from working hard when there is no correlation between our hard work and our rewards.
Just the same, the logical conclusion of the conservative extreme is absolute stasis.
A liberal ideology with no conservative grounding doesn’t recognize that runaway debt is a bad thing. In order to thrive, you need a good mix of the “Working to make things better” tempered by the “common sense” influence of conservative principles.
By the way, we should all try to recognize that it isn’t right to tar all conservatives with the brush of the current Administration. One good look at their fiscal and legal policies shows a marked departure from true conservative policies. Runaway deficit spending, larger government, ever more intrusive government, these are not conservative principles, they are fascist and dictatorial and despotic, the belief that because they’re in power, they have a divine right to behave as they wish, without consideration for the wants, needs and wellbeing of anyone else.
None of the preceeding means to say this piece is BAD, I just hope readers don’t let it push them FURTHER into the “My team vs Their team” mentality that I believe is at the heart of most of the problems facing our society and our country today.
Liam.