[Kelly_2000]

Just where the hell do you start knocking this one down?

come on help me out, I want to send a rebutal to this guy :-)

[LongElegantLegs]

How about "Bob the Liberal's goats don't get violated because of Joe's son, who joined the Marines to fight terrorism"?

[BelegStrongbow]

"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 liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. "

And the money to provide for Dad's SS check is a gift from on high? I think Joe is paying taxes to support his dad, rather than paying him directly, as would be the case had not liberals decided citizens couldn't be trusted with such a duty.

Take that tack with every one of this person's allegations and you'll do fine, I think.

[Gay State Conservative]

The author of this trash obviously never visited East Germany,Romania,the USSR,Bulgaria,etc during the 70's and 80's.

[GoLightly]

For starters, the EPA was signed by Nixon.

[robertpaulsen]

What about Joe's second job or Joe's wife working to pay the crushing government taxes that fund all these goodies? What about the higher prices of locally manufactured goods to pay for all the federally mandated regulations?

The author talks like all these things are created and provided free by the liberals.

[Dominic Harr]

I'd write back and point out how much this shows the Ls don't understand us, their opposition, one bit.

We're *all* "classic" liberals now, in that sense. We all want minimum clean water standards. We *all* want food to have labels with their ingredients. Etc, etc.

Now, modern day Ls (actually they preferred to be called 'progressives') run the D party. They aren't fighting for these kinds of things at all. If they were, they would be winning elections.

Or to put it much more pointedly -- modern Ds can't take credit for better car safety standards when the guy who fought for them -- Ralph Nader -- opposses the modern day D party!!!!

[L,TOWM]

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...medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards

All these things are courtesy of ERISA '74 (Employee Retirement, Insurance, and Security Act of 1974). Signed into law by a Republican President.

The cost of these mandated benefits have also been what have fueled the exporting of American Manufacturing Jobs to the turd world, the "Wal-Mart" effect of having part-time employees (which are not covered under ERISA), and Corporate Downsizing. In short, the unions and then the federal government ensured that American Labor would be too expensive to use, so you could pin a partial credit for the illegal immigration problem on ERISA while you're at it. Plus the inflation shocks of the '73 - '82 were a partial effect of the artificial pricing of US labor, which is still seen today in devalued currency.

Thanks, Liberals

[weegee]

Joe has to get up every day at 6 a.m. to pay "his share" of taxes to support deadbeats and illegal immigrants who take from the system without ever contributing. Such is Marx's maxim: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Joe is a rotten American because he fills his coffeepot with American capitalist corporation name brand coffee rather than going to weekly co-op meeting to buy fair trade coffee from socialist nations.

Joe rinses the pot with tap water and then twists off the top of a plastic bottle of water to rinse the taste of oppression from his mouth.

Joe takes his meds. He's gotta. He is overwrought with guilt over living in the nation's chief consumer of EVERYTHING in the world. Joe's has so much while everyone else has nothing. This is Joe's fault. Don't blame the dictators in those other countries who have their populace under their thumbs.

Joe's medications are available over the counter and as such can be deducted from his taxes but he would have to do a lot of paperwork so he bears the extra cost; besides the gub'ment needs that money more than Joe does. If Ted Kennedy wouldn't keep blocking personal medical savings accounts, Joe could bank up pre-tax dollars for his own medical care. But Teddy is wiser than Joe and knows that Joe would just be doing this as a way of exploiting the tax codes to avoid paying his "fair share".

Joe fondly remembers the breakfasts of his youth; bacon and eggs made fresh by his mother and grandmother. But Joe knows that he cannot have cholesterol today. He's been branded as OBSESE because his Body Mass Index is not as low as his wife's, who has the same height as Joe. The BMI does not tolerate sexism and makes no distinction between fat and muscle. So Joe has an eggbeaters and tofu omelet.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His shampoo does not harm his eyes because it has been lab tested on live animals. As Joe steps out of the shower, he notices a floater still circling in his toilet; damn low flow toilets. Gotta flush them twice to do half the job of an old throne.

Joe dresses is a pretty pink spring dress; Joe is a transvestite and he likes to share his fetish with his co-workers. It's who Joe is. A confused man who wished he'd been born into a world that did not designate one garment for men, and another for women.

Joe takes a good look at his SUV and notices that some eco-terrorist has set it aflame overnight. "But that's free speech...", chuckles Joe and silently thanks the ACLU for preserving the 1st Amendment.

Joe walks two miles to the nearest bus stop and breaks a sweat. "Whew!" He notices there is no bench for passengers to wait on. Some homeless person might sleep there so the city did away with them. He tried reading some of the graffiti to pass the time but cannot make out any of the urban runes. 30 minutes have now passed and he hopes that his boss will understand that he is late because someone "freely expressed" herself in his driveway last night. Joe would call his boss but he cannot because there are no payphones around anymore. And why would there be? "Everyone" has a cellphone now, especially children. Joe waits another 30 lonely minutes and pulls out a cigarette. Joe doesn't normally smoke but felt it was his civic duty to buy them as a way to subsidize farmers, and pay more taxes. Joe's ruse works. A bus pulls up and Joe gets on it. He waves to the other two passenger, neither of whom look up.

Joe arrives at work 2 hours late but still eager to do a good job. Joe works in public service so he knows that his job is safe and that he won't be fired for poor work ethic.

It's noontime and Joe runs out to buy some lottery tickets. He's never won in the past but "this time" he feels lucky and could really use the money. And he knows that it promises to one day give him something in return for paying a voluntary tax.

Joe gives the clerk a hundred dollar bill. The clerk eyes Joe suspiciously and asks him to present photo ID, "What do you think this is? Some election poll where you can just show up, tell us who you are, and get what you came for???"

It's a good thing that clerk asked Joe for some ID too. Turns out that hundred dollar bill was a forgery. "But I got it from a Hezbollah charity when I was visiting some pen pals in Lebanon...", exclaimed Joe.

Joe is hauled away by the police. The next morning he makes bail and is released...

[Niteranger68]

Wow! Liberals taking credit for things they had nothing to do with. Go figure!

[gardencatz]

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 coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

Joe lives in the country. His water comes from a well. As he takes his first sip of coffee, he thinks how glad he is he doesn't have to pay for his water and yet it's cleaner and fresher than the water that comes out of the tap at his job in the city. Joe pays part of his medical care. He can attest to that because of the amount taken out of his paycheck every 2 weeks. Joe works for a hi-tech firm and there is no union.

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.

Joe doesn't have time for bacon and eggs, he eats a bowl of cereal with skim milk or grabs a breakfast bar and a piece of fruit on the way out the door.

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's parents and grandparents are perfectly healthy (his grandparents are in their late 80's and going strong) and they grew up before the days of liberal lawsuits for stupid people that only line the pockets of the lawyers. But in Joe's case, he lives on a small farm which his wife and homeschooling children manage. His wife makes the family's soap and shampoo using goat's milk, herbs and other quality ingredients. No need to label.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks out into the quiet where there used to be the humming of others also going off to work in this quiet little community. A bunch of environmentalist wackos who had no clue what they were talking about got the timber industry shut down in order to "save" a spotted owl. Years later they would discover that it wasn't the timber industry harming the owl habitat...a larger owl, originally from the environmental paradise of Canada, had been encroaching on the spotted owl's habitat, pushing it deeper and deeper into the forest. The irony, of course, is that the timber industry might have actually saved the owl if these pseudo-intellectual city environmentalists who have less knowledge of the delicate balance than the lumber jack who spends 12 hours a day in it would've kept their nose out of something they didn't understand. You see, owls live on the edges of the forest. They hunt in the fields and other open spaces, but need to forests as a safe place to raise their young. The closer they can be to their feeding ground (especially for a small owl like the spotted owl), the better they thrive. Modern timber practices insure there's always plenty of nesting places for this small native owl. The environmentalists wackos probably insured the spotted owls extinction, but the owl from Canada seems to be thriving.

He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

There is no subway where he lives, but he and all the other citizens in small towns all across this nation are taxed so the "government" can subsidize some liberal's ride to work. Affordable transportation is paid for by everyone whether they're able to avail themselves of those services or not. His company has a large parking lot where he and his fellow employees park, but at least the fancy-pants uber-metro-sexual liberal lawyer making six figures has his ride to work subsidized.

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.

He belongs to NO union. He works in the hi-tech field, it's very competitive and a skilled, dependable worker gets all of the above as well as bonuses and merit raises. Joe has worked in this field for over 25 years and never belonged to a union and has no intention of ever joining one. Joe believes that unions once served a useful purpose (about 100 years ago), but now their whining demands just put a drain on society and artificially inflate the cost of living.

Joe's employer pays to 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 unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of a temporary misfortune.

Joe had surgery a couple years ago. He thought as long as he paid into this "worker compensation" plan he might as well avail himself of it while he was recovering from his surgery. The restrictions were so ridiculous and the amount was barely enough to pay his electric bill and buy groceries. Joe was glad he thought to apply for his vacation which of course paid him his full salary so he could pay his other bills.

It's 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 government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Okay, thanks for the FSLIC, but Joe doesn't have a Fannie Mae mortgage. He did take advantage of low interest rates and refinance at a lower rate and got some extra money to pay off his car loan, do some remodeling and put some more cross fencing on his property.

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. 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.

Joe drives into the city for work so he drives an economy car, but his family has a farm truck and his wife drives an SUV since she has to drive their 6 children around to various activities. His family does have a farm (Joe's cousin lives there), but it's several states away in Kansas and has never been subsidized by the government. It was paid off by Joe's great, great grandfather. Now, the family, keeping up with current trends, made it into a bed and breakfast working ranch so America-hating liberals can come out to the country for a week and pretend to be cowboys, then go back and tell all their snot-nosed pansy-assed friends how "quaint" and "simple" life in the country is.

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 liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Sorry, Joe's father never worked for a union either. He worked for a nonunion steel mill (one of his grandson's works there now) and diligently put money into a 401K. He enjoys a comfortable retirement and he and his wife, Josephine are currently away on a world cruise. They'll be in the Holy Land for Christmas. It's something his wife has wanted to do her whole life. She raised 10 kids and made a wonderful home for him and their children and Joe's father's thrilled to be able to help her make one of her dreams come true (without government help or intervention).

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 laughs when Rush asks the blowhard liberal for proof of his assertions. The liberal just blubbers because he can't come up with any specific examples that the radio host can't refute.

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 themselves, just like I have."

Then Joe pulls into the Walmart parking lot to pick up a few things on the way home, happy that he's spent his life in the country, away from the elitist condescending snobs that people living in the city have to put up with everyday. He's grateful that Bush is our president and his administration has eased logging restrictions. There's even a few small mills reopening around the county. They're nonunion too, but being small they develop personal relationships with each other. No need for special "laws" when someone's wife has a baby. They pat the lucky husband on the back, pass the cigars and send him home for a few days.

Cindie