A note to my sister, the self professed conservative.....

[DWilliamsamh]

Before I post this please understand my sister is more conservative than I am, but not nearly as conservative as she thinks she is. When we actually talk about these issues we find much more common ground on the left side of the aisle, than on the right, and very few items where we must agree to disagree. But every once in a while she will forward or post some crap she got, mostly just to needle not just me but folks who are way more "left" than I am as well. Most of the time I can just laugh it off or even think - well there are a couple good points in this one...

Then we come to the ones like the gem below. First what she posted on FB, then my response (leaving her name out because I love her and don't want her FB page flamed).


Her comment on the post
DIVORCE AGREEMENT


THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM.

then the "forwarded" post

American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, marxists and Obama supporters, et al:


We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course.




Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.


Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and diparate tastes.


We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.



You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.



Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.




You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).


We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.



You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens.



We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks.



We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood ..

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters.



When our allies or our way of life are
under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain.



You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a
right.



We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.

We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot.



Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete.



In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you Answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American

P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheehan, Barbara Streisand, &
Jane Fonda with you.

P. S. S. And we won't have to press 1 for English.


My response:


Sorry XXXXX, but I couldn't just let this one go.....


Go ahead and vote for whatever moron wrote this and you can feel "free" to keep the:

..."free market" compulsory 80 hour work week. Oh and don't expect a raise. What would you do with it anyway? Credits at the company store are all you'll really need

...Wars for profit inspired by the need to use up weapons and munitions, produced by military contracts that make up 50% or more of you national discretionary spending, against nations that those corporations sold last decades weapons to, and who your leaders now consider a "credible threat." (And don't worry about all those dead soldiers from your new nation, after all everyone there is so patriotic that they will be proud of their dead "heroes," regardless of the "reason" for their sons' and daughters' demise. The posthumous purple hearts and silver stars will comfort the parents in their old age).

...inevitable monopoly corporations that can charge you what ever they want for their product - because well who ELSE are you going to buy it from?

...the pot hole filled roads, that charge a dollar a mile in tolls roads that would be owned by private parties,

...children's toys painted with lead paint,

...industrial pollutant filled ground water,

...childhood education only for those that can afford 15-30K a year, while the rest of the kids remain ignorant and/or work the above 80 hours cleaning the vats in solvent factories or some other such future-less job.

...old people who have to choose between food shelter and medicine

...losing everything you own in a desperate attempt to pay for your cancer treatment or life time of diabetes medication that you buy from the one monopoly drug company because the insurance company you paid for twenty years, decided they'd rather just drop you because you are no longer profitable.

...be unable to declare bankruptcy, because heck, the people you owe don't have to care that you have to spend all that money of insulin, or chemo, or dialysis. Dammit, you shouldn't have accepted mortgage or car loan, or education loan when you were healthy if you were just going to go and get sick.

...government surveillance at the whim of your president, or governor, or mayor, or borough council president. After all if you've done nothing wrong, what do you have to hide? I'm sure all the books you read, the way you discipline your children, movies you watch, music you listen to etc will definitely not run afoul of the fundamentalist Christians or free market capitalists view of morality and social order..

...compulsory housing of the military in your homes

...being tortured for your confession, since the police already "know" you are guilty. And being Sentenced to 20 years in prison because the majority doesn't like the way you live you life or what you do in your bedroom, or the work of fiction you penned.

..trial by a star chamber that doesn't have to show you evidence of your guilt, and doesn't have to listen to your bullshit alibi.

Etc....

Etc....

Etc....

P.S. We'll take the aforementioned entertainers as well as Brad and Angie, as well as darn near all of the music industry including Springsteen, Dylan, Led Zeppelin, the Dead, James Taylor and Green Day.... I assume you'll want to keep Chuck Norris, Tom Selleck, John Voight and Vince McMahon, and Kid Rock

I hope she is still speaking to me next Sunday at Easter dinner.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. I canbelieve it's written by a young person - it's filled with untruths, toddlerisms, and stupidity.

That piece reeks with all the hallmarks of immature thinking, childish bravado, and the simplistic reductionism of an eight-year old.

[TheWraith]

4. Reminds me of a joke I heard awhile back.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.

The other, of course, involves orcs.

[eppur_se_muova]

34. I like it! nt

[DWilliamsamh]

6. Agreed....

I can only attribute her assigning value to this B.S. the fact that she spends most of her time with her six and ten year old children.

[Salviati]

11. That just means it was written by a republican.

I Have faith that an actual 8 year old would be able to write something a lot better than that drivel.

[Iggo]

12. "Toddlerisms." Never heard that one before. I like it. (n/t)

[Blue_Tires]

31. A few years back Mother Jones (iirc) did a piece on a guy in

northern VA who allegedly writes a lot of these and has the connections for WIDE e-mail distribution...

[abelenkpe]

2. You're doing better than me

At least you still speak with your conservative sister and plan holidays together.

Good response! It is important to counter these things with logic and patience.

[TheWraith]

3. I hope like hell that you hit "reply all." nt

[DWilliamsamh]

7. I would have ...but it was a FB post. SO I just replied there. (N/T)

[Tesha]

5. This has been around for a while. (NT)

[SoxFan]

8. We get Boston, New York, LA, Honolulu and Chicago

You get Tulsa, Anchorage, and Jackson.

We get Bob Dylan. You get Toby Keith.

We get the Red Sox, Phillies, Twins, and Dodgers. You get the Rangers.

[DWilliamsamh]

10. Thank god we get to keep the Sawx and the Phills :-)

...Said the Philly native who went to Tufts and fell in love with the Sox during the Rice, Boggs, Buckner era. Poor Schiraldi.

[NeedleCast]

9. Here was my response to the same E-mail

American conservatives, tea-baggers, religious fundamnetalists, rednecks, klansmen, Palin supporters, et al:

Not a problem! We'll gladly grant you the divorce you seek. You can keep all the states you won in the last presidential election. Please keep in mind that these core "red states" are the ones (with the exception of Texas) that are most reliant on federal tax money to keep them from collapsing economically. However, since education, social programs, transit funding, etc. are things you don't care about, you should be fine until you run out of food. Please don't call us for assistance.

We like scalable tax rates so we will keep them, after all, that's they system we've had in place for a few hundred years and it's worked so far. We'll be happy to keep the liberal judges and ACLU because we respect things like rights and freedom for all, not just people we agree with. I'll be keeping my guns though, along with our share of the military. After all, someone is going to have to protect us from drunken rednecks in trucks shooting our street signs.

We'll keep the afore mentioned celebrities if you'll keep Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Sarah Palin. Good luck finding enough oxycotin to keep these three under control.

You can keep all the greedy corporations you want. I'm sure you'll continue to be happy toiling under them. We'll be taking the unions though. Good luck with your worker rights. Enjoy your 80 hour work weeks, elimination of benefits and saftey standards. I'm sure your universal health care will take care of you when you get maimed on the job...oh wait...

I'll happily leave you to your bibles and various relgious nutters, NASCAR and "hockey moms." We'll hold on to the artists, musicians and movie stars and sports stars...the people who actually make watching TV worth watching. You can keep Jeff Foxworthy and challenging shows like "are you smarter than a 5th grader" and Bass Masters.

You're welcome to spend all you want on defense and living in fear that people that are different than you spent all their time trying to kill you. We'll spend our time making sure our children grow up instead of getting them killed in various overseas operations that have probably only made your enemies stronger. Remember, everyone you kill has a brother, father, mother or uncle that's going to want to kill you back.

You can have all the Judeo-Christian values you want. However, we're going to ask you to turn over all the scientists, educators and professors currently in your possession. You won't need them. I'm sure you can rely on faith in your sky daddy to take care of you. You guys are welcome to squabble among yourselves about which sect of christianity is the "right" one and we'll just go ahead and accept people with different religious views, since we understand that there's no proof that one faith is correct.

I'll also remind you all that after the Judeo-Christian leaders you love so much set up a religious theocracy that forces you to spend your entire Sunday at church I'll still be getting up late and watching the NFL from noon until midnight. We'll have all the sports stars anyway, so I guess it wont matter. Jeff, don't forget that we'll be taking California, the Chargers and most of the NFL teams that don't suck. You guys can keep Jerry Jones and the Cowboys.

We agree to your musical choices however we'd like you to keep most country-western artists as well (and I'll take a minute to remind Jeff that Gwyn Steffani is on our team...think carefully about that =P ).

You're welcome to your belief that healthcare is a luxary. Since we'll have all the doctors (well, the ones who don't use leeches and blood letting as legit medical practices) and more importantly, educational facilities, we'll be looking forward to collecting revenue from those of you running across the border for health care.

I'd like to propose that, considering the amount of impovrished southern states you'll be taking on that you've already got a flag familiar to them so we'll be keeping the star spangled banner and you guys can go back to the stars-n-bars.

Assuming you'll agree to our stipulations, I think we have a deal.

[DWilliamsamh]

13. I LIKE IT!!!! You actually mustered a sense of humor in yours.

It may have been more well received than mine will be.

[crazylikafox]

15. That was great! Bookmarked.

Love this one:

"Since we'll have all the doctors (well, the ones who don't use leeches and blood letting as legit medical practices) and more importantly, educational facilities, we'll be looking forward to collecting revenue from those of you running across the border for health care."

[Child_Of_Isis]

19. I'm sure you can rely on faith in your sky daddy to take care of you

Sky daddy...! That is insane! :rofl:

[Mad_Dem_X]

29. LOVE IT!

Excellent response.

[EOTE]

14. What an incredible joke.

We don't like redistributive taxes, so we'll stop paying them. Of course, we're going to keep the cops, fire departments and military that those taxes pay for. Sorry to say it, but your sister doesn't sound all that bright.

[DWilliamsamh]

17. She didn't write it.....

A "law student" did - he signed it at the bottom.

And in her defense - like I said before she isn't nearly this conservative or this stupid. She knows taxes need to be paid to provide those essential services. She posts and forwards this kind of stuff because she thinks she's way conservative and she thinks these kinds of things are a funny needling of "liberals." But I have been able to get her to admit that her opinion isn't that different from "liberals" on many, many things.

I think more than anything she suffers from the perception created by the Linbaughs and Freidmans and Norquists of the world that the very word "liberal" is synonymous with laziness, sloth, avarice and "communism." It's fun to see her admit that she actually believes in such things as consumer protection and education for ALL kids - and remind her that these are the result, and part and parcel, of liberal thought.

[EOTE]

21. I know she didn't write it, but she did forward it and seems to agree with its message.

I don't mind needling at all, so long as it's done with at least an inkling of truth. The truth is, if conservatives ever decided to form their own country, Somalia would look like a paradise by comparison in a matter of months. Conservative ideology has failed time and again, yet these simple minds always need to blame someone else for their failures.

[DWilliamsamh]

23. While I agree with your assessment of conservative ideology...

I respectfully decline to agree with your conclusions about my sister. :-)

[EOTE]

24. I hope she comes around, then. She'd probably be far happier as a democrat.

Because if she is bright as you say, it must be rather frustrating and lonely being part of an ideology that celebrates ignorance.

[Iris]

27. That's the bottom line, isn't it?

Why do some people insist on holding onto ignorance and outrage?

[uppityperson]

16. fwiw, searching fb is possible.

[DWilliamsamh]

18. Yes and I am sure she isn't the only one who has posted this one....

it's been around for quite a while now.

[leftynyc]

20. Reminds me of this one

Dear Red States:

We're ticked off at the way you've treated California and we've decided we're leaving.

We intend to form our own country and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly:

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.
You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red states
pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro choice and anti war and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.

We wish you success in Iraq and hope that the WMDs turn up but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the US low sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven

Sister schools plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush

Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

We're taking the good pot too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Sincerely,
Author Unknown in New California.

[DWilliamsamh]

26. Weeeee....I'm glad I posted to my journal...these are fun!! (N/T)

[RevCheesehead]

22. Martin Sheehan? who's that? Cindy's father?

Rosie O'Donnell? What's she done lately?

This must be a very old e-mail that's been floating around.

Oh, and nice "fat joke" against Oprah, Rosie, and Michael Moore. Classy as always, aren't they?

[Juche]

25. We will keep the scientists and professors, they can keep the religious extremists

If you actually did take all the wingnuts and put them together, the society would likely collapse. The majority (but not all) people educated in science and engineering reject wingnuttery. There are conservatives in that group, but not a lot of wingnuts.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/only-six-percent-of-scien_n_229382.html

A new study by the Pew Research Center finds that the GOP is alienating scientists to a startling degree.

Only six percent of America's scientists identify themselves as Republicans; fifty-five percent call themselves Democrats. By comparison, 23 percent of the overall public considers itself Republican, while 35 percent say they're Democrats.

The ideological discrepancies were similar. Nine percent of scientists said they were "conservative" while 52 percent described themselves as "liberal," and 14 percent "very liberal." The corresponding figures for the general public were 37, 20 and 5 percent.




I remember reading a book (I think the Authoritarians) where an influential conservative christian laments that despite there being hundreds of conservative christian radio stations, various colleges and law schools, television stations, and other investments there wasn't a single research laboratory. And there is a reason for that.

FTR, I'm not opposed to religious people. I know there are decent leftists who are religious. What I am saying is that if you actually did divide society all the scientists and empiricists would move to the liberal side and all the people driven by radical ideology and superstition would be on the conservative side. And their society wouldn't make it long.

Virtually every meaningful industry and R&D done in the US is done in a large city (SF, NYC, San Diego, Atlanta). And all large cities are liberal, even Salt Lake City is liberal. So conservatives would lose virtually all scientific advances if they lost the liberals. The San Francisco bay area, a place hated by the right, is also the home to endless biotechnology, information technology, alternative energy and various other industries. They have 7 million people. Compare that to the scientific achievements of adding 7 million people from small towns in deep red states.


So we will keep all the science and technology. They can keep Bachmann and Palin. Fine by me. Imagine the discrepency that happened between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. They are right next to each other but on almost every measure the DR is superior to Haiti. That is what would happen.

Almost all advances that move humanity forward come from large cities, mostly on the coasts. When conservatives lose those, their society will stagnate. Within 50 years it'll be like comparing America to Mexico. In 50 years we will send teams of medical robots to help their society after they are decimated by a natural disaster because they hate government regulation (the government isn't going to tell them to make homes earthquake proof) and because they siphoned infrastructure funds off for supply side tax cuts.

[Bryn]

28. This reminds me of an old email that I have loved during the Bush Admin.

here it goes:

A Day in the Life of Joe the 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 the 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 (and are trying to do the same again because those regulations were weakened by conservative thinking).

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and 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 his 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."

[MissMarple]

30. Great response. What else could she expect?

[Blue_Tires]

32. going by that fucked-up logic, then liberals get to keep all the clean air and water

we'll also keep our science, too kthxbye

[lunatica]

33. I've seen that email she sent you before

It's getting old. But your remarks are original and good.