I Get the Best Emails - Ongoing
I didn't respond to this one. Maybe it's because I'm too busy workin' it full-time or maybe I just can't be bothered.
Funny, that's the same excuse I'm using to avoid properly telling certain selfish people to go to hell.
So here it is - feel free to respond. Or, if you're balancing two jobs and two children with barely enough time to effectively get your hate on, just laugh at the simplistic ways people try to break down complex political issues.
Works for me.
Father/Daughter Talk.
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many
others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and
among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to
support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a
feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had
participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her
father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he
thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on
the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed
objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she
indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in
school.
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let
him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very
difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to
go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a
boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all
her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, 'How is your friend Audrey doing?'
She replied, 'Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes,
she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on
campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties
and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too
hung over.'
Her wise father asked his daughter, 'Why don't you go to the Dean's office
and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only
has a 2.0 . That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would
be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.'
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired
back, 'That's a crazy idea, and how would that be fair! I've worked really
hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work!
Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree.
She played while I worked
my tail off!'
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, 'Welcome to the Republican
party.'
If anyone has a better explanation of the difference between Republican and
Democrat, I'm all ears.
posted by kate @ 11:34 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Father/Daughter talk revised:
Father: So, how is your friend Muffy doing in school?
Daughter: Well, you know Muffy's father donated a lot of the money that he inherited from his father to the school, so she's pretty well set. I mean, she doesn't do anything. Drinks all day and night. But what can they do? I mean, the library's named after her granddad.
It's a good thing that her granddad is such good friends with the secretary of commerce. The company was really struggling after all that insider trading stuff blew up, but the government bailed us out because of those contacts.
Father: Well, darling, I know you'd get better grades if you didn't have to get that job after school because of those scholarship cut-backs. Maybe you could have sex with some of the teachers for better grades. That's what I always did!
Daughter: Oh, dad, what would I do without you!
or ... father/son talk:
"Well, perhaps you could work very hard, go through law school, make a lot of money, and then you would have the resources to launch a nationwide tour and a massive new campaign to stamp out poverty that we can all be proud of ...
"And then go have an affair and lie about it until you're outed by a sleazy tabloid ... "
:-)
Wrong school analogy. The real Republican/Democrat picture is more like this:
The daughter's other friend, Muffy, never bothers to study either, but she is always given good grades by her teachers and allowed to skip classes and play by different rules because her daddy donated big bucks to the school.
Muffy snorts coke but is never busted. When Muffy's brother George goes AWOL from his National Guard duty the records are conveniently lost. And when Muffy's dad wants to build a new University building with his name on it on the site of the last green space on campus, despite vociferous protest by the entire student body, the site is bulldozed anyway.
And that, daughter, is the REAL difference between Republicans and Democrats!
I think it's a damn fair analogy of progressive taxation.
Superdave's and rreppy's analogies both assume that only rich Republicans are donors to colleges. Muffy's Dad could easily be a rich Democrat (but her name prolly wouldn't be Muffy...maybe Rainbow or Algoria)
I think it's a damn fair analogy of progressive taxation.
Superdave's and rreppy's analogies both assume that only rich Republicans are donors to colleges. Muffy's Dad could easily be a rich Democrat (but her name prolly wouldn't be Muffy...maybe Rainbow or Algoria)
Whoops!
Look! A giant Panda!
I had a Republican friend, Wendell, (now deceased) and we used to get into good natured debates over the issues of the day.
One day, my daughter, 13 or so at the time, was present at one such debate and was perplexed.
"I don't understand," she said, "What is the difference between Democrats and Republican?"
"Well," my friend Wendell said, "The difference is that when Democrats get into office, they give away all of the national treasury to all of their friends."
"But so do the Republicans," I interjected. "It's just that the Republicans have so few 'friends'."
Yeah, what capemh said!
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