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 FDIC 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. 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.
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.
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 themselves, just like I have."
~~~Originally posted on John Gray's website in 2004. Revised by me to give it the pinko commie cheese-eating flavor to it. Thanks for sharing this everybody!!!
MY COMMENTS ARE BELOW:
The entitlement mentality of the Nanny Staters who have no idea where wealth comes from is breathtaking. Many of their "progressive" ideas were solved in the early 20th Century. Big fat pensions, cheap prescriptions, easy, fat government-based living is what the Commie children expect, European Socialism is their goal, how it's paid for is not their issue...this the the Left's goal of absoulute entitlement with no contribution (see Government pensions).
My sister's fiancee' posted this, he's a musician that works, shall we say, part-time. Decent guy, but blinded by the idea that people who earn a living steal from the "workers".
I would love to re-write this with FReeper help, any volunteers?
First off the title needs changing.
“justifying Progressive achievements”
No, those were NOT “progressive” achievements.
I got that stupid email from a lefty. I couldn’t get more than a few sentences into it. The first thing I saw as wrong was giving tree huggers credit for clean water. Conservatives clean up things, lefties only piss in them.
How many hours a day does he work to pay the taxes that some liberal wacko has imposed on him and his family?
...then he pays 60% of his income in taxes. Fortunately, his income is low because his job was given to an illegal alien and a trial lawyer sued him for the rest.
I'm sorry, but you need to reevaluate whom you consider a "decent guy." Believing everybody who earns a living is stealing from "workers" is not decent, it's obscene.
1) 100,000,000 Murdered
2) Destruction of the Black Family
3) Waste of Trillions of Dollars on the failed “War on Poverty”
Etc.
The list never ends.
Richard Milhous Nixon started the EPA.
And some liberal girly-man can send out snarky emails like this because people from my tribe (USMC) fought to maintain his freedom to do so.
Semper Fi,
I was born in a company hospital in a desert town where workers were well paid with medical care. The company was there to make a profit from copper taken from an unpleasant, dangerous mine. Along came the union and eliminated the flexibility of the compant to operate and raised the costs drastically. Along came the EPA, OSHA, EEOC, ERISA, and made it impossible to make a profit. To the joy of the tree huggers and progressives, the mine closed and the first mining compant to have large numbers of minority supervisers and managers was history. On the positive side, the mostly abandoned town provided a set for the filming of “U Turn” staring that great American, Sean Penn.
The whole thing is a straw man.
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.
—Joe fills his coffee pot which was produced by an entrepreneur who thought he could make money by selling a product that people might buy in order to make coffee. If Joe has coffee, it’s because someone went to Columbia and convinced Columbians to grow coffee. He also convinced container ships to bring the coffee beans to America. Then he convinced someone to grind and sell the coffee. Oh, and the water is clean because people who distribute the water don’t want to be sued for a brazillion dollars for poisoning their customers.
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.
— If his medications are safe, why is late night cable full of ambulance chasing lawyers trying to get people to sign up for class action lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies for unintended (and unnoted) side effects? And the only reason that he has work perks is because FDR, in order to prevent anti-American unionists during WWII from gouging the American tax-payer in time of war was to cap wages. This forced businesses competing for labor to offer non-wage incentives like vacations and health benefits. None of that would have happened if union workers hadn’t tried to gouge America in time of war.
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.
—His bacon is safe because entrepreneurs generally don’t like killing their once and future customers.
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 is smart enough to figure out for himself whether he wants to buy a particular shampoo or not.
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.
—If his air is clean, it’s because entrepreneurs have made Joe’s society sufficiently rich that he can worry about things like air pollution instead of things like starving to death. Third world countries don’t care about pollution because few people there live long enough to worry about cancer risks.
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.
—Joe has to live 90 miles away from the office buildings that he cleans because asshole lefties have put most new construction off limits in the city he works in. He doesn’t have a subway. He has to drive to work and pay the $7.00 gallon gas that lefties want to charge him to “get him out of his car”.
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 his temporary misfortune.
—Joe gets those benefits because some ambulance chasing lawyer made millions off class-action lawsuits against companies that didn’t provide that. Unions had nothing to do with it.
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 FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
—Because of the FDIC, Joe doesn’t have the choice of going to a bank which practices full-reserve banking. With the FDIC, no full-reserve bank can compete. Unintended consequences strike again!
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. Joe is home from work.
—Some elitist leftie type in academia decided that (quel surprise!) it would be great if he had more customers for his academic product and wants someone else to pay for it.
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.
—The average car which cost 1400 hours worth of average labor in 1964 now costs 1500 hours of average labor. Sure, Joe has a safer car, but at the cost of more labor time needed to purchase it. And Joe is smart enough to drive safely regardless of the condition of his car
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.
—Bankers don’t like losing money. Only the government doesn’t care about losing money
The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
—80% of America had electricity when the TVA was built. Why were they so backwards that noone wanted to put wire in there? Lefties don’t care about that question.
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.
—Joe’s father’s union paid millions of dollars to democrats inn order to ensure that democrats voted to give Joe’s father’s union unsustainable benefits. And social security is a lie. Always has been.
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.
—Yeah, poor Joe. Republicans fought against slavery. Republicans fought against Jim Crow. Republicans fought for voting rights and civil rights. Republicans fought against Democrat entrenched interests - like union seniority rules which allowed unions to keep blacks out of the work force (the original impetus for union organizing in the late 19th century).
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.”
—Barf alert.
Anywhoo, my two cents on this.
All of my meds are paid for out of my own pocket, until I reach my high deductible. Then they are paid by my insurance company by the policy I buy for myself, thank you very much.
My breakfast might be steak and eggs, not bacon and eggs. The steaks are safe because I know who butchered them (just down the road) and I know who raised them (a few miles away on the cattle ranch.
I know what's in my soap. I've watched my wife make it.
WTF is a "subway station?" and why am I paying for it so Joe can ride it to work? I pay for my own darn ride. If Joe wants to be a "contributor," Joe can pay for his own darn ride.
I could go on, but I'm obviously not Joe. Joe needs to grow up and take care of himself and his family and quit asking me to pay for it all.
I don’t want to read the whole thing. Which paragraph is about senators running away instead of doing their job?
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.
— The water is clean because the water department has been doing what water departments have been doing for over 100 years - purifying drinking water.
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.
— His medications are safe because researchers tested them thoroughly on animals before they ever made it to the human race. And the meds are cheap because his employer, who is nearly bankrupt, has been paying an enormous penalty for the medical insurance that Joe abuses.
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.
— Hoe’s bacon is safe because he’s learned to cook pork properly. His shampoo has a label on it because some crybaby liberal thought it might be useful to 0.000001% of the population and therefore 100% of the population should pay for its inclusion.
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 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.
—The air he breathes is clean because all heavy industry has left the country due to excessive taxes and regulations. He takes the subway because it is cheap, due to the fact that the entire nation’s taxpayers are subsidizing it for him.
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.
— Joe’s a leech. He probably works for the city or state, where his union thugs can negotiate his great benefit at the expense of the “little people” that aren’t lucky enough to have an uncle that is a councilman and has pull with the road maintenance department (which is how Joe got his job, because somebody as lazy as him couldn’t do so any other way).
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 his temporary misfortune.
— All Joe needs to do to collect worker’s compensation is pretend like he hurt his back. The political hacks that run the workers’ compensation department at the state level will pay for anything and everything, knowing that the more they pay out, the larger their budget will be next year.
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 FDIC 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. Joe is home from work.
— Joe isn’t likely to have any savings at the bank because Joe is a liberal and would rather blow his paycheck on beer and big-screen TV sets than save for his own future. Especially since Joe knows that he can live off the fruit of other peoples’ labor due to the tax-and-spend socialist policies that his liberal politician friends support.
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.
— His car gets horrible mileage because some liberal safety nazi decided that 500-800 pounds of air bags and other safety devices should be MANDATORY. Not to mention that the car was way overpriced because of the cost of the overpaid lazy union labor that built it.
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.
— The house is probably in shambles, ready to fall to the ground. And it has electricity because the electric company was able to overcharge city residents in order to subsidize stringing $5000/mile wires to his father’s house so that they could sell him electricity at a regulated maximum of 10% over average cost.
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.
— His father, unlike those of us still in the workforce, is likely collecting Social Security at a rate well above what he paid into the system over his working years. And like SS, his pension is enormously expensive and isn’t sustainable without confiscating the entire earnings of the nation’s workers in the next few years.
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 themselves, just like I have.”
— Joe needs to listen to more talk radio.
Short refutation for what it’s worth:
Many liberal ideas start out OK, and they co-opt credit for ideas started by converative such as the EPA. We want clean water, too.
The problem comes when liberals feed more money and power to the government, making it a freedom crushing monster. The only way for some businesses to survive is to get involved in the political game. That leads to crony capitalism aka fascisn, the province of leftists from the national SOCIALIST Hitler to Obama and his health care act waivers for his cronies.
Similarly with unions: They were necessary - heck are still in some cases - but they’ve become little more than corrupt machines feeding money and power to union leaders and liberal politicians, their membership be d@mned.
On top of that, every “freebie” comes with strings attached - purse strings ripping money from the productive and puppet strings on those they “help.” After all, look at the ideological regidity demanded of African Americans in our society.
What liberals just don’t get: When ALL power is concentrated in the government, the corrupt follow that power into government. Everyone else ends up at the government’s mercy. There’s a word for that, and it’s not “freedom.”
Picture 1, after the Progressives 'celebrated' during the Inauguration of their Hope and Changey Unicorn riding King January 20th, 2009 - A Day that will live in Infamy...) .
Picture 2, after the Evil Conservatives of the Tea Party had their Rally last Fall.
Tell me which Group cares (or actually does something about it) about the Environment? A picture (or two) is worth a thousand words.
This is the one that gets me. "Government subsidized" - the government is paying part of Joe's ride to-and-from work? And the (obviously) liberal nut who wrote this tripe doesn't get the irony of it (they never do, or their socialist/communist slip is inadvertently showing): They don't get understand that the government takes money from the people who work and earn it. They need to answer the question of why I should be paying part of Joe's ride to work. Why can't Joe pay for it?
And Joe walks to the station? I really, really doubt that he does. Most likely, he drives to a parking lot and takes a gas-guzzling, pollution spewing shuttle bus from the lot to the station, thereby making his day even longer than normal.
I guess liberals do this so Joe will be too tired to keep up with what the government is doing to him and his family, and will just vote for whoever he is told to vote for by his "betters" (the liberals!!).
More liberal self-aggrandizement.
Liberalism has killed over 50 million babies - how about that, jackass!