PROG OFF

If the text below were to be posted on the People's Cube without an introduction, it could easily pass as a prog-on spoof of liberal absurdities. Hence this prog-off intro. Let's make it part of our People's Cube workshop on the subject of buttals and rebuttals.

This story has been floating around the progosphere since 2004. Attributed to John Gray of Cincinnati, Ohio, it was later popularized on Thom Hartman's radio show and posted on YouTube. I learned of it after it had been inserted, in its entirety, into a comment under my recent essay on Prog Chauvinism at FrontPage Mag (soon to be posted on the Cube). Meant to refute my points about the prog-assault on the rest of us "for our own good," it actually serves as an illustration to these points.

The "story" about Joe Republican may be nine years old, but it still regularly appears in various prog-blogs, posted by studious proggers, who must like it because it perfectly captures the proggish zeitgeist, or proggeist for short. As such, it deserves our attention.

Proggeist generally results in acting like an immature, frightened child, who cries for state control to protect him from what he doesn't understand in this world. Without such control, the world would be filled with all kinds of scary things and products that must somehow grow by themselves like weeds, and so they need to be organized, cultivated, and harvested by the government.

Marxists (and every garden-variety prog with them) like to refer to their outlook as "historically optimistic" because they believe in an inevitable "progress" of humanity towards the collectivist utopia.

In reality, however, their beliefs end up with the notion that in lieu of big coercive government, humans will immediately begin to steal, murder, rape, cheat, and otherwise plunge into the chaos of barbarism. In contrast, we (free-market limited-government individualists) believe that without the big coercive government, humans would be able to unleash their full potential and prosper in a self-governing society that would benefit everyone in more ways that big government could ever do.

Now, who is the true optimist here? Shouldn't proggism be more correctly described as historically pessimistic?

This seems to be the main dividing line between our two ideologies. All the other things are mere side effects.

The only way progs can achieve their "optimistic" vision is by changing human nature. But 70 years of the Soviet experiment have proven that human nature cannot be changed. As a result, progs are doomed to be stuck forever in stifling socialist totalitarianism. Unfortunately, they're dragging us into it too, since we are practically two minds living in the same body. Which mind will prevail, only history will tell.

Remember George Carlin's question, "If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?" The answer is, "yes."

Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers 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 this day. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some 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 tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some 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, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some 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 liberal didn't think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

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 to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He 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 electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican's would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show, the host's keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn't tell Joe that his 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".

Who is this "Some Liberal"? I like the cut of his jib. Award him a Beet of the Week or the Order of Lenin or something.

You didn't build that, Some Liberal did.

It takes a Government.

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. As he fills his pot with clean water he suddenly doubles over, clutches his chest, and falls to the ground dead because some liberal wouldn't authorize his heart operation under Obama Care.

All Hail the benevolent nanny state!

For years Joe has forced to get up several hours before the crack of noon because SomeRethugliKKKan™ blocked the efforts of SomeLiberal™ to fully tax TheOnePercent™ "their fair share"(™), therefore forcing poor Joe to get a job instead of relying upon welfare a state-provided LivingWage™ and thus reinforcing his delusional belief that it is possible for worker units a so-called "individual" to provide for oneself. The combined effects of decades of insufficient leisure time sleep and the theft of the fruits of his labor weakened Joe's heart to the point that a transplant was deemed "medically necessary but economically impossible"(™ pending) due, again, to the economically-injudicious under-taxation of TheOnePercent™.

The moral of the story: RethugliKKKanism™ causes heart attacks, which drives increases in heath care costs and ultimately results in ever more criminal WealthTransfer™ to TheOnePercent™. The People's Surgeon General should be promoted to Field Marshal and ordered directed threatened encouraged to start a propaganda public-awareness campaign on this issue immediately.

Day in the Life of Joe middle-class Republican admirably illustrates the point that without an enlightened State able to transcend old fashioned ideas of the rule of law and Natural Rights and instead put the once divided powers of legislature, judiciary, and executive, of judge, jury, and executioner in the one single hand of a guiding enlightened class to be operated by the levers of executive power, that without this regulatory state we would live in chaos and anarchy. Without the dictates of the State there is no law and without just law we would soon devolve, as the ancients before us, to misery and tyranny.

I never thought about the ingredients in my shampoo until now, and never really cared. I checked the bottle. The ingredients are listed in very tiny type, and consist of a lot of long, unpronounceable (not to mention untypeable) words. So I googled it:

https://www.livestrong.com/article/1534 ... e-shampoo/

I suppose I should be grateful for the DMDM hydantoin and sodium benzoate without which my hair would be covered with mold and mildew; otherwise I still haven't the foggiest idea what's in my shampoo. Oh, and I still don't care.

And what moron washes down his meds with hot brewed coffee? I mean, besides the same moron who puts his McDonald's coffee between his legs instead of a cup holder and then sues the company because they didn't warn him in writing not to do that?

Unless he has the sort of job e.g. where he collects a lot of cash in tips, Joe Republican isn't likely to go to the bank on his lunch hour to make a deposit because his paycheck already goes there electronically. Donny Democrat, on the other hand, doesn't trust banks and cashes his government checks at the liquor store.

And of course Joe Republican pays his mortgage and other loans. Meanwhile, Donny Democrat cries and whines that he was tricked into taking out a bigger loan than he could afford to pay back, so now he thinks his loans should be forgiven and everything he wants given to him for free.

Otherwise, you have to scratch your head and wonder how the human race ever got this far without prog policies. Had they been around twenty billion years ago, they would've instituted government programs to save the dinosaurs and the beasts would still be thundering around today, evolution be damned.

We progs acknowledge evolution when convenient - otherwise it's revolution that engages our attention. .

Pinkies lost her cookies! Everyone knows Donny Democrat supports free and subsidized rides for all shovelers. If it weren't for Donny's grifting, Joe would be stuck cold and alone on some uninhabitable desert island playing with a volleyball.

Oh wait....

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Bwaahahhhahaha!!!

Scratch that!

They need to revise and update their list; maybe add something about ObamaCare.

Did I miss the part where Joe pushes Grandma off the cliff because she can't afford her healthcare? Dear Leader (PBUH) says thats what "those people" do, it must be true...

Thanks to a liberal, Medicare paid for Grandma's wheelchair, thus making it easier for Joe to wheel her to the edge of the cliff. Some liberal also introduced a bill to have a guard rail and big warning sign installed to prevent Joe from doing that and also to protect drunks, stupid people, suicides and cute little lemmings from falling, jumping or marching off the cliff's edge. But House Republicans voted against the bill just to score cheap political points and stick it to Obama because he's black, when, in fact, all they did was stick it to Grandma. And kill a whole bunch of cute little lemmings.