Forward into battle

My lovely, brilliant fiancee got an email forward from one of her co-workers the other day. She's already posted her extremely cogent response to it. As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I figured I'd follow suit over here, for my audience of... what is it these days... four or five, maybe?

Here's the email forward:

Subject: College Liberals

Sometimes, extreme liberal ideals seem much different when their outcomes directly affect you...
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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 a 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, 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."

See, I think this is fabulous; a totally cogent summation of every loonie liberal fallacy, elegantly encapsulated in this one utterly brilliant parable near worthy of Jesus.

Still, I think it lacks... I don't know... verisimilitude. Or maybe it's just too brief. Anyway, I think it needs a little something to really bring the truth across. So, let me add just a little more to the narrative, for flavor, if nothing else...

Incensed, the young college student immediately retorted, "What, so you're equating my Grade Point Average, an objective assessment of my effort and abilities within the context of a college curriculum, with actual material wealth and property? You're saying that my straight A average is the academic equivalent of your vastly swollen bankbook? Is that it?"

"Of course," the conservative father said, nodding smugly. "It's exactly the same. You worked hard for your grades and resent the idea that someone who hasn't done the same amount of work as you do should get a free ride on your superior talents and greater effort. Well, I've worked hard for the success I enjoy, and like all decent, right thinking, hard working men and women everywhere, I think it's just crazy that I should be expected to give up part of my just earnings to support those who are too lazy to go out and make the same effort to do as well as I have!"

The daughter raised her eyebrows. "Dad, you honestly see no difference between your status in life at the present time and mine? You think they are exactly equitable?"

"Exactly," her father said with assurance. "You've worked hard to get where you are, I've worked hard to get where I am. You deserve your success and I deserve mine. No freeloaders need apply for handouts around here. If your friend Audrey wants a 4.0, she can get off her lazy ass and work for it, just like you did."

"I see," the young woman said. "And similarly, if that homeless man living in a cardboard box in the alley behind the supermarket wants to own his own business like you do, well, he can build a time machine out of old tin cans, travel back to before he was born, and arrange for his mother to marry someone with a million dollar athletic shoe company, so he can start out there as a Vice President when he's 25 and assume control of the whole thing when his dad retires!"

"Wait," the father began to bluster. "That's not... young lady, I worked hard... my grades in college... I graduated near the top of my class... I went to the Harvard School of Business... my management skills when I came into this firm saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars the first year I was here..."

"Daddy," the daughter said, more or less patiently, "you got into Harvard because grampa bought them a new library, and they didn't throw you out when you kept getting drunk and high in your fraternity because grampa bought them three new dorms and a new gymnasium with a pool. You got high grades in most of your classes because you picked really easy classes and hired smart but poor kids to write your papers and take your exams for you. You saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for grampa's shoe company your first year by firing all your American workers and replacing them with kids from Indonesia who did just as good a job for 12 cents an hour."

"But," her father tried to say. His daughter was having none of it; she went on relentlessly, "Daddy, there is no comparison between the way I earn my grades and the way you've 'earned' your success in life. I got into a good school based only on my own grades and SATs, which I got the hard way, by working. I get all As in college because I work my ass off. Remember how you offered to get me into Harvard by endowing some new faculty lounge for them? That's how you do things. I didn't need you to do that for me; I got into my school fair and square. And where you do things like send your hot new 25 year old trophy wife to sleep with Senators for government contracts, then sell shoes to the military for $2,000 a pair that cost you $1.50 each because they're put together in a South Korean sweatshop and made out of pressed cardboard, I actually study and actually turn in my work and actually get perfect scores on my exams because I'm smart and I work hard."

The girl's father looked up alertly as that. "Say, hon, speaking of sleeping with Senators for government contracts, you don't look so bad in a black cocktail dress yourself. I was wondering..."

The young woman flashed her father a furious glare which stopped him dead. She took a breath, then went on, "Plus, I can't understand why you get so pissy about so called 'high taxes on the wealthy' anyway, when you pay your accountant six figures a year to make sure most of your real income and property go through offshore accounts and you end up paying less in tax than a public school teacher!"

"It... I..." the father looked baffled for a moment -- then shrugged and spread his hands. "Honey, that's just how the real world works. Some day you'll understand."

"I understand now, dad," she said. "I understand that your wealth and success and social status all derive from the labor of other people who work for you, whom you pay as little as you possibly can to maximize your own profits. I understand that you cheat, steal, lie, bribe, exploit, and connive at every opportunity to maximize your own assets at the expense of everyone around you. I understand this very well, because I hacked your computer last weekend and have all of this on disc and in hard copy, and I've already sent it all over to the IRS and the FBI, and I think I passed a couple of guys with warrants on my way up to your office today. They should be knocking on your door any second now."

The father's eyes went wide. "What? What? Well... well, that's ridiculous! It's not fair! I have rights! That's an illegal search! You've invaded my privacy!"

The wise... far too wise... daughter sighed. "Yeah, dad. Welcome to the Democratic Party."

Now, there are people... and mind you, I know 'em... who would take enormous umbrage at this characterization of every hard working Republican as basically being inherently corrupt scions of privilege who started out with huge advantages due to the circumstances of their births, and who have employed any means, fair or foul, to advance their own personal agenda and maintain and increase their own personal wealth ever since.

To which I respond merely as follows: there may well be honest, hard working Republicans in America. However, when the leadership of the Republican party is indeed, and inarguably, almost entirely comprised of inherently corrupt scions of privilege who started out with huge advantages due to the circumstances of their birth and who have employed any means, fair or foul, to advance their own personal agendas and maintain and increase their own personal wealth for their entire adult lives and throughout their careers in so called 'public service'... well... the honest, hard working Republicans, whoever they may be and wherever the hell they may be hiding, are just going to have to sit down and shut up for a while. I have no sympathy.

As I said in a previous post -- if there are conservatives or Republicans out there who aren't corrupt, venal, evil, hypocritical sonsofbitches -- they need to stop voting for the goddam corrupt, venal, evil, hypocritical sonsofbitches.

It's as simple as that.