Found on This Modern World, an e-mail that’s apparently making the rounds:
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 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 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 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 government 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 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.”
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p>Don’cha just hate those liberals?
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Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I think this story might be a little one-sided.
Yeah, the guy who wrote this wasn’t very clever. Anybody could do that for any position in anything, it just shows how biased you can be.
Well, interesting comments, Dan and Michael (“not very clever,” one-sided”). But which of Joe Republican’s daily benefits can you attribute to GOP action?
I agree with Uncle Mike here. First off, the way I understand it is the entire point of this article is to showcase liberal/Democratic programs and initiatives that benefit everybody, including Joe Republican. Yes, it’s showing one side, but I don’t see it claiming to show both sides. It sets out to use real-life examples of liberal principles that have had positive benefits as a counterpoint to the sort of hateful liberal-bashing you hear all the time.
When I first saw this posted by a reader on Media Matters for America, it was soon followed by what I’m assuming was supposed to be a rebuttal called Joe Democrat. Except that instead of using examples of conservative programs that have benefitted the American people (not just the wealthiest %10) it was little more than a long string of stereotypes casting Joe Democrat as a shiftless hippy on welfare. Not exactly a convincing argument.
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” That old quote from the 60’s keeps coming back to me every time i see some attempt by Progressive Dems to communicate, possibly, with Retro-Repubs. You see, it’s two different world views so far apart the two may never meet. We have King Georgie’s and Dark Knight Cheney’s Neo-Convict, Faith-based world. In that world facts are irrelevant or dangerous and to be avoided at all costs…even the gory, brutal deaths of 3050 Americans (including Afghanistan, which the media doesn’t). But we Progressive-Liberal-Dems have our own little fantasy going on. We believe that presenting facts will allow people to learn and comprehend reality and adjust their opinions, decisions and actions accordingly. This sends faith-basers into stuttering paroxyisms of spitting out talking points and insults at random, because using logic and making sense are also scorned in their world…while Progs stare wide-eyed in confusion, wondering how insane people need to get before they’re locked up to protect themselves and others. (Which is a good reason to lock up our-own-mad-King-Georgie and his Tempted Knights of Darkness…all of whom are doing so much harm to themselves and others they make Hannible Lector look like a boy scout.) Republican Joe originally came out in the late 1960’s or early 70’s. I’m glad to see it again. Funny how the wheel turns, huh. I gotta tell you though, things really are much worse now. We haven’t been this close to being under the boot-heel of corporate-fascis-paranoid-psychotics since Grandaddy Prescott Busch hooked arms with (and sold arms to)Adolf Hitler back in 1939. But that’s just for the other Progs out there. I already know the dead-bolt polly-wogs of the rabid-right won’t understand or accept a word i’ve said…no matter how many facts exist to Prove it. They’ll just Rove it and consider it holy writ. They have that “authoritarian-followers” disease that shuts down all mental functions other than what their Big Daddies tell them is so. (Following wide-eyed in stone-cold rapture repeating, “Master! Master! Master!”….they go out into the world to prove, no i mean to Rove, their’s is the only “moral/Christian/decent/loyalist” thing to do.) Our founding fathers and mothers and their sons and daughters down through many generations fought and died to keep our American Princiles in our Constitution alive and well, protected from all interference, abandonment, and corruption, as our president and congressmen and women still vow to do today. The illegal take-over of our government by the Neo-Convicts who have shat on those American principles, values, and rights for their own vengeful lust and ruthless gain, is at the edge of te cliff and ready to go over it. Again, we the Democratic-Liberal-Progressives of this country have to step up to save everyone, including Republican Joe. ClaudiChameleon *-)
Well, I wish people would act instead of just talk. It’s one thing to say you are for progressive principles, and quite another to put your money where your mouth is.
I think the end view-point of Joe Republican is that he is a self made person, isthe starting point for most on the right today. History is irrelevant. What matters now is personal comfort.
Claudi Chameleon nailed it. Republicans take what this country (through the Liberal beliefs of our Founders and the hard work of our countrymen) have made possible for them to take, then they say they got it on their own so now everyone else can be damned. They are blind to their hypocrisy and are doing their best to ruin our country. I just hope their are enough people out there that truly love our country so we can step up and save it from the neo-con revolution before it’s too late.
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