The New York Times is so cute......

oh like someplace where people discuss the issues and leave out all the media hype BS. I dont even know what that would look like.

 

Actually I was an electronics tech, H1B kissasses don't do that and illegals don't do that either, and electronics was booming at the time... were it not for that weird occupation, and it's sort of weird, I would have been homeless.. I always look back on those days with wonder how I made it at all... actually I was homeless for awhile but it was before that... I have a hard time putting my chaotic life in chronological order but that's not even another discussion that I want to have either...

Am I THAT conservative?? Hell no, I hate much of what conservatives are doing but it's not as bad for me personally as what liberals have done and will continue to do ad infinitum ad nauseaum.....

 

Boo hoo, tell us all about how 'horrible' liberals have made everything.

"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 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 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 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."

by Tom Tomorrow

 

Ah the wonderful power of "spin".

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE DEMOCRAT

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. He can only afford to drink four ounces a day because his tree-hugging governor raised the sales tax for the fifth time in four years to pay for gov't run Daycare, the Playboy channel for incarcerated sex-offenders, free needle-exchange programs, social services for illegal aliens, and condom-vending machines in preschool.

But he savors every drop, for next year he'll only be permitted to buy decaffeinated coffee because FDA testing found that force-feeding lab rats 20 gallons of coffee per day raised their cancer rate by .0003% per thousand.

With his first swallow of water, he rations his daily intake of medication. He can't afford all his meds because some stupid commie liberal ambulance-chaser drove pharmaceutical costs through the roof with frivolous lawsuits.

His meds are subsidized by his employer's medical plan because some liberal closed shop union workers fought their employers in order to garnish employee wages so that Joe would labor under the illusion that someone else is picking up the tab when in fact his employer is reaching into Joe's own back pocket.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is unsafe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for limited liability laws so that if anyone dies of food poisoning, the meat packing industry will pay a fine and pass the cost on to the customer.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient because some crybaby liberal thought that he was too stupid to know that imbibing a pint of shampoo might be harmful to his health.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. Joe begins to cough, choke, and gasp for breath because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for passage of the Kyoto treaty, allowing Third World countries to contaminate the world air supply with carbon monoxide.

Joe doesn't dare go out at night because some environmentalist wacko liberal lawmaker forbade the spraying or draining of malarial swamps.

Joe lost his first home to wildfire because some environmentalist wacko liberal lawmaker forbade the thinning old growth forestland.

His dad used to take the train to work. But when the Federal highway system destroyed our once-magnificent train system, Joe had to resort to the filthy, crime-ridden subway system because some fancy-pants liberal fought to disarm law-abiding citizens so that street gangs could mug commuters, then cop a plea based on post-traumatic slavery disorder.

Joe begins his workday. Joe's dad used to support his family at a middle class lifestyle on a single income. But it now takes two or three incomes to do the work of one because liberal bureaucrats drove up the cost of doing business through overregulation and usurious corporate taxation.

If Joe gets bored with his job, he can fake an injury and collect workman's comp., retiring to the slopes of Aspen to recuperate because some stupid liberal didn't think that employees might try to bilk the system.

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 thought that financial institutions should be able to defraud their customers and then file for bankruptcy, thereby shielding the pension and severance pay of board members while sticking the taxpayer with the tab.

Joe has to pay his federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided to subsidize college education so that universities, freed from competitive pressure, no longer had to keep tuition costs down.

Joe had the GPA and SAT scores to get into Harvard, but he had to settle for a community college because racial quotas kept him out while admitting inner city students who couldn't read or write, but had mastered multiple techniques of fitting a condom in high school sex-ed.

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. He has to practice defensive driving because some America-hating liberal had alcoholism classified as a legally-protected disease and disability.

He arrives at his boyhood home. The countryside used to be a quiet, leisurely, pristine place to live until the Federal highway system and forced bussing overran the bucolic countryside with suburban sprawl as urbanites fled the cities.

His family used to live off the land, in harmony with nature, until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification, powered by fossil fuel consumption.

He is happy to see his dad. Dad will be the last generation to retire on Social Security because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberals regularly raided the SS trust-fund to subsidize social programs, instead of allowing workers to invest their own earnings in compound interest-bearing accounts.

Joe's Dad was forced into early retirement, without a pension, because some environmentalist wacko liberal discovered a snail-darter in the cooling system of the local nuclear plant, where his dad used to work.

Joe's uncle used to be a cattle rancher until he was driven out of business because some environmentalist wacko liberal lawmaker kept him from shooting wolves that preyed on his livestock.

Joe's cousin used to work at the local lumber mill until he was laid off because some environmentalist wacko liberal discovered a spotted owl on timberland.

Joe's relatives used to receive assistance from the local chapter of the Salvation Army until it had to close its doors because some liberal civil libertarian sued it for refusing to offer domestic partnership benefits to all its employees.

Wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberals also invented a Constitutional right to an abortion, resulting in 45 million fewer workers to support the retirees.

In addition, wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberals promoted SS so that no able-bodied, adult child should ever be saddled with the onerous burden of caring for the elderly parents who devoted the best years of their lives caring for them when they were young and helpless.

Finally, wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberals lobbied for involuntary euthanasia so that burdensome parents can be put out of their children's misery.

As the day ends, Joe reflects on his nation, his liberties and his freedoms. He is free because conservative cold warriors kept commie lefty Liberals from unilaterally disarming America.

Joe resents having to be so dependent on gov't goods and services, but since he didn't ask for it, since--indeed--it was imposed on him anyway, against his will, and forcibly deducted from his hard-earned wages, the only way he can recoup a fraction of his losses is to play the hand he's been dealt--even if the deck is stacked against him.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on NPR. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are good and right-wingers are bad. He doesn't mention that the beloved liberals have fought for the infringement of every freedom that Joe's old man used to enjoy and take for granted.

 

And another...

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffee pot with water to prepare his morning coffee. Joe can afford the coffee because corporate loving rich Republicans exported our jobs overseas with NAFTA and CAFTA.

With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications work because money-grubbing Republicans refuse to place price controls on drugs, thereby allowing pharmaceutical companies to earn enough money to pay for the extensive R&D and take the risks necessary to create miracle drugs. But the drugs still cost too much because government mandated health insurance has artificially increased the demand for medications with no one to police the prices, but that’s OK since Joe’s Bush-supporting bossman pays all but $10 of Joe's medications.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient, none of which are damaging to his skin because some animal-hating sadistic corporations paid some scientists to swab the shampoo in some poor rabbit’s eyes. Just for kicks.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some dollar-worshipping conservative developers built some nice houses with pretty yards 15 miles from the industrial sector of the city, and Joe drives his comfortable and affordable “Japanese” car made in Georgia without the inflated cost of union labor, and Joe can stop on his way home to pick up a package of reasonably priced T-shirts at the evil Wal-Mart, instead of having to park his car and take a filthy subway to pay twice as much downtown.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because his parents instilled in him the value of hard work so he studied when he was in school and learned that he could get by just fine without relying on the government. Joe's employer pays these benefits because Joe's employer doesn't Joe’s a valuable employee and Joe’s employer doesn’t want him to go work for his competitor. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get another job pretty quick because he’s a self-starting go getter who has a lot of friends at church and from college that he can call to find more work.

It's noontime and Joe would need to make a bank deposit but doesn’t need to go to a bank because evil monopolist Bill Gates helped make computers useable to the general public and he can automatically pay bills thanks to the economies of scale of Bank of America or Wachovia installing the expensive equipment to allow Joe this convenience. While Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC, Joe doesn’t have to worry about Democrats in Congress pulling the rug out from under the real estate market again like they did in the 80s. At least Joe hopes they learned their lesson.

Joe pays a low rate mortgage because Americans voted for that war monger Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Bill Clinton had the good sense to reappoint Alan Greenspan. And Joe can afford a nicer home, not only just because of the low mortgage rates, but also because he gets to keep more of his hard earned money because Republican Presidents in the 1980s and in 2001 cut his taxes.

After work this evening, Joe plans to visit his father at his farm home in the country that Joe’s dad still owns because his landed-gentry Republican County Commissioners have refused to steal his land in the name of a higher tax base.

Joe gets in his car for the drive because the government added additional lanes to the local highways that people actually use instead of throwing money away on a regional rail system that studies project people would little use. Joe gets to his house in record time because death-loving Republicans allow you to go 65 and 70 mph, and you can because pollution loving Republicans don’t make you plug your car in overnight so you can drive for 2 hours at a maximum speed of 20 mph.

Joe arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house, but he doesn’t because when his grandparents moved to the United States they learned to speak English and didn’t spend their time complaining about how the government wasn’t doing enough for them. The house didn't have electricity until some military-industrial power company plopped a big ol’ nuclear power plant over by the river.

Joe is happy to see his father, so they go to the local bar and enjoy a beer and a cigar, where Joe’s dad tells him that if the estate tax is repealed, Joe can keep the farm in the family for a fourth generation and won’t have to sell it to pay the taxes.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on NPR. The reporters keep telling stories about how bad corporations only care about profit and that higher taxes will allow the government to “invest” in our future. They don’t mention that the beloved Democrats have vilified the very people who have provided us jobs, good and services from their small businesses and big companies.

Joe agrees: "Those evil corporations don’t care about the little guy, all they want is to pay their executives huge salaries and steal oil from the middle east. Why can’t we be like Europe where we can work 30 hour weeks and get a month vacation? Bastard rich people only care about themselves."

 

Here's some more truth:

A Day in the Life of a True Conservative

Joe Conservative wakes up in the morning and goes to the bathroom. He flushes his toilet and brushes his teeth, mindful that each flush & brush costs him about 43 cents to his privatized water provider. His wacky, liberal neighbor keeps badgering the company to disclose how clean and safe their water is, but no one ever finds out. Just to be safe, Joe Conservative boils his drinking water.

Joe steps outside and coughs–the pollution is especially bad today, but the smokiest cars are the cheapest ones, so everyone buys ‘em. Joe Conservative checks to make sure he has enough toll money for the 3 different private roads he must drive to work. There is no public transportation, so traffic is backed up and his 10 mile commute takes an hour.

On the way, he drops his 12-year-old daughter off at the clothing factory she works at. Paying for kids to go to private school until they’re 18 is a luxury, and Joe needs the extra income coming in. Times are hard and there’re no social safety nets.

He gets to work 5 minutes late and misses the call for Christian prayer, and is immediately docked by his employer. He is not feeling well today, but has no health insurance, since neither his employer nor his government provide it, and paying for it himself is really expensive, since he has a precondition. He just hopes for the best.

Joe’s workday is 12 hours long, because there is no regulation over working hours, and Joe will lose his job if he complains or unionizes. Today is an especially bad day. Joe’s manager demands that he work until midnight, a 16 hour day. Joe does, knowing that he’ll lose his job if he does not.

Finally, after midnight, Joe gets to pick up his daughter and go home. His daughter shows him the deep cut she got on the industrial sewing machine today. Joe is outraged and asks why she doesn’t have metal mesh gloves or other protection. She says the company will not provide it and she’ll have to pay for it out of her own pocket. Joe looks at the wound and decides they’ll use an over the counter disinfectant and bandages until it heals. She’ll have a scar, but getting stitches at the emergency room is expensive.

His daughter also complains that the manager made suggestive overtures towards her. Joe counsels her to be a “good girl” and not rock the boat, or she’ll get fired and they’ll be out the income.

His daughter says she can’t wait until she’s 18 so she can vote for change or go to the Iraq War.

They get home and there’s a message from his elderly father who can’t afford to pay his medical or heating bills. Joe can hear him coughing and shivering.

Joe turns on the radio and the top story is a proposal in Congress to raise the voting age to 25. A rare liberal opinionator states that it’s an attempt to keep power out of the hands of working class Americans. The conservative host immediately quashes him, calling him “a utopian idealist,” and agreeing that people aren’t mature enough to make good choices until they’re at least 25.

Joe chuckles at the wine-swilling, cheese-eating liberal egghead and thinks, “Thank God I live in America where I have freedom!”

 

Actually throughout the 60's and 70's it was Democrats opposing environmental protections.

It would go like this. A suburban Republican legislator would introduce a clean air or clean water bill aimed at industrial polluters.

The offending factory owner would meet with the Union and say, "those white collar anti-labor Republicans are trying to pass a bill that'll be expensive for me to implement. If I have to clean up I may just as well shut down, move or cut wages. Your union members will be screwed." The Union would then approach their Democrat contingency in the legislature to fight the "anti-jobs" environmental laws.

It's the same problem today with global polluters. If I'm an elected official in India or Brazil am i going to fight hard for green legislation that could inhibit the job prospects of my impoverished constituency? Hardly. The want of a clean environment is the providence of the bourgeois. To those who were starving before they worked for a polluter the imperative of environment is a distant finisher to the more pressing need of economic survival.

 

SPIN

 

But it wasn't liberals opposing environmental protections. In the last 140 years, the Republican and Democratic parties have switched sides several times, with one being conservative and the other being liberal. But labels and party affiliations change. What doesn't change are the underlying political philosophies of liberalism and conservatism, and the fact that the liberals usually turned out to be right and the conservatives turned out to be wrong. And so it goes.

 

Falsely ascribed idealogical labels muddy the contrariness of various policy positions.

Example. Pro-choice on abortion is considered a liberal position. Pro-2nd amendment is considered a conservative position. In reality they are BOTH libertarian positions though most pro-choice people are anti gun and vica versa. Democracy rarely recognizes that what's good for the goose is good for the gander....