The Lurking Liberal Menace
From valued-contributor Sven comes a pointer to this interesting perspective: Day in the life of Joe Middle-Class Republican.
7 Responses to “The Lurking Liberal Menace”
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September 1st, 2004 at 8:19 am
Hey, wow! Look at me. I’m Famous! Thanks John.
September 1st, 2004 at 8:32 am
Thanks, it makes a good counter to so much of the conservative arguments I hear.
September 1st, 2004 at 10:25 pm
Joe gets home and finds his house has been broken into. He startles a man rummaging through his dresser. The man turns and comes at Joe with a knife. Joes reaches for his gun in an attempt to defend himself, but finds that he doesn’t have it because a liberal wanted to protect people. Joe’s body is found a few days later by visiting relatives.
or
Joe comes home to find his family murdered. The murderer is found the next day. He is found to have a history of criminal activity, a few instances violent, but nothing which caused him to spend more than a few years in jail because a liberal thought that the man could be rehabilitated.
Just a bit of devils’ advocate perspective, and honestly, I’m a big supporter of rehabilitation over punishment when it comes to imprisonment. Neither liberals or conservatives are entirely right. Nobody is. There are Joes on each side of the spectrum… who here appreciates what republicans have done for them?
September 1st, 2004 at 10:33 pm
Fair enough, except that the original piece’s day in the life was actually credible, in the sense of being a normal, average day. Your version is more like the first few minutes of a Charles Bronson revenge fantasy. Which isn’t to say that bad things don’t happen. But at least for me, that particular piece of Devil’s advocacy seems like a stretch.
September 2nd, 2004 at 7:37 pm
What have the Republicans done for me?
September 3rd, 2004 at 1:08 pm
Unfortunately, this is just too speculative to take seriously. The two main counterarguments are “the free market would’ve settled on doing all these important things by itself,” and “Joe would have three times as much money to spend on these and other things if his government didn’t take most of it away.”
These counterarguments, of course, are equally speculative. Spinning off into a debate about what the government or the market would’ve done in other circumstances would be stunningly pointless, which I’m afraid makes the original piece fall into the same category.
May 3rd, 2005 at 12:24 am
Actually the two arguments “the free market and three times as much money arguments” don’t need to be speculated as much as you think. Simply look at areas where free market has gone relatively untouched (also you act as if the free market idea is something new, it is not…only that is has been embraced by governments is realtively new) it effects are out there for those that care to study them. This is a sad example of the falicy of “both sides are both equal in validity” and therefore the truth can never even be supposed. Oneside can be shown to be closer to the reality of the situation based on factual observation.
Saying both sides COULD argue doesn’t mean that one is not further from the truth then the other.
Lastly onan, the fact that you COULD express a counter opion doesn’t negate the fact of what actually happened. These things ARE true and though you could argue that they could come about by different means does make them disappear and become untrue.
Your conclusion, however, appears to be similar to the following statement…
If someone saves me from being injuried…i could argue it is PERHAPS possible that I could have avoided the injury another way, therefor the person didn’t really save me.
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Also to tuesday, although nothing sticks out since the shift to the evangelical right. Republicans have done things to help curtail government from invading to heavily on people and regulating certain institutions. The new breed of ULTRA-conservative should not be mistaken for the republicans of old (pre 70s).
The current government is more a new philosophy with an old face then a representative of the parties founding ideals. Most of the true conservatives have been systematically replaced. I’m just trying to help put things into perspective.