# I suck and I blow; also, Communist Little Girls and Their Communisty Lemonade Stand! \[Fixed title\] **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 8, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976 "2010-07-08T16:35:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/81 "2010-07-09T19:51:03Z")
These pretzels are making me thirsty. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/82 "2010-07-09T19:51:47Z")
Terry Savage would have gone apoplectic over what my kids are doing right now. They’ve emptied out their piggy bank and they’re out on the deck shouting, “New bank open! Come to the new bank!” I asked them how their bank worked and they said they planned to charge people $1 and each customer could then get as much money as they wanted out of their piggy bank stash. We just had a short lesson on how banks work. They remain unconvinced and think their idea is better. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/83 "2010-07-09T19:56:50Z")
> [@C3](#): > > They remain unconvinced and think their idea is better. Well, if the stash comprises less than a dollar, they’re right. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/84 "2010-07-09T19:59:43Z")
Ha! Unfortunately, it does not. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/85 "2010-07-09T20:39:23Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I’ll be generous and discount the “conservative” part, because charity is supposed to be an integral component of conservatism. > > In fact, I don’t think the author is a principled conservative at all, but rather a Foxian/Republican hack, which has little to do with conservative principles at all but rather just finding _anything_ to maintain a level of faux outrage against strawman liberalism. There _may_ be a conservative principle at work in Ms. Savage, although calling it a principle is generous - it’s somehwere between an article of faith and a trained response. It is as follows: \*\*_A free society owes its merchant and warrior classes nothing less than unquestioning faith and undivided loyalty._ \*\* Anything else compromises the prosperity and security of the commonweal, the integrity of freedom, and the responsibilities of citizenship. Strawman liberal-bashing is merely one of many means to this end. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/86 "2010-07-09T21:56:35Z")
> [@C3](#): > > Terry Savage would have gone apoplectic over what my kids are doing right now. They’ve emptied out their piggy bank and they’re out on the deck shouting, “New bank open! Come to the new bank!” I asked them how their bank worked and they said they planned to charge people $1 and each customer could then get as much money as they wanted out of their piggy bank stash. > > We just had a short lesson on how banks work. They remain unconvinced and think their idea is better. I love this. Very cute. Unless your kids are like, 15. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/87 "2010-07-09T22:13:37Z")
Credit where it’s due, **magellan** ; I laughed. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/88 "2010-07-09T22:55:43Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > When life hands you lemons, insist on paying for them. That sounds like something Stephen Colbert would say. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/89 "2010-07-09T23:04:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Terry Savage is right! People giving things away like this just creates a false mindset of entitlement that causes people to elect governments that just hand out welfare. We’d be better off by abolishing all government entitlements. People who are truly in need could just depend on the good will of their neighbours. Because people are fundamentaly good. Why I even heard about some little girls who were giving away free lemonade to anyone who was thirsty. That’s the kind of thing we need to see more of. Little Nemo Savage is right about Terry Savage being right! Can I get a harrumph?! ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/90 "2010-07-09T23:19:49Z")
Terry Savage has a new column that provides greater clarity into the fact that she isn’t such a heartless person: [Giving is Great, but Lemonade Stand Should Teach Entrepenurship](http://www.suntimes.com/business/savage/2481302,CST-NWS-savage09.savagearticle) Naturally we all misunderstood, but the point remains: Lemonade Stands are where we learn about Capitalism…and Capitalism only! Nermind the fact that in fact that may not at all be why these little girls or any kids put up a lemonade stand or the fact that it isn’t her friggin place to be giving these kids lessons in entrepeneurship or to somehow equate the downfall of the “American Way” with the fact that these girls were being generous. I love this paragraph: > [@](#): > > The children weren’t rescuing people from the heat, since it was a temperate day. They were just looking for something to do – and there was no one around to teach them how a lemonade stand should really work. So Mrs. Savage recognizes that the girls just wanted to have something to do. It wasn’t some freaking school project. But the presumption that there need to be a lesson in there about what the kids should be getting out of their game and more importantly that she should be the one to teach it is ridiculous. If Savage had simply writen a column reflecting on the lemonade stand she visited where the kids were giving away free lemonade, something along the lines “As I enjoyed my free lemonade I got to thinking how the generosity is to be lauded, there would be nothing wrong with charging money as a fine lesson in entrepeneurship. Of couurse, the girls were just playing game and it wasn’t important that they learn that lesson from me at this time. But I certinaly hope it is a lesson they learn sometime, a lesson we can all benefit from…” etc. She may at least not come off as some sort psychotic, self-important windbag. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/91 "2010-07-10T03:51:26Z")
> [@C3](#): > > We just had a short lesson on how banks work. They remain unconvinced and think their idea is better. You had a poor lesson plan. What you should have done is give them a dollar, then take the entire stash. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/92 "2010-07-10T04:16:52Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > You had a poor lesson plan. What you should have done is give them a dollar, then take the entire stash. Then his girls inform him that there’re punitive interest rates hidden in the fine print, enforced by the crazy hobo down the block (and his trusty lead pipe). ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/93 "2010-07-10T06:28:11Z")
Ha! One of the funnest days of my life was the time my pal threw a goblet of lemons at the staff… ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/94 "2010-07-10T07:16:46Z")
How on earth is what these little girls were doing ‘communisty’? They weren’t taking lemons and sugar and cups from people and killing them if they resisted. They weren’t dictators. And they didn’t insist that everyone share in the lemonade equally. And they weren’t ‘socialisty’ either. They didn’t implore their neighborhood association to confiscate lemons and sugar and cups from more well-stocked homes in order that they may redistribute them more equally. They weren’t calling anyone ‘selfish’ for wanting to keep the contents of their own pantrys. And they weren’t claiming the whole system had been set up so that some evil numerical minority had a lock on the majority of lemons. Nope. If anything, what these little girls were is ‘philanthropic’. I can see why you might consider them communisty though, **Gangster Octopus**. Such an idea could be called typical of people of that age. Why, I myself, in the third grade and being told I couldn’t get a candy bar from the corner drug store (yes, there really was a drug store on the corner. I had to cross a street to get to it though; it was actually on the nearest corner of the next block. But I digress) because we had to wait for some of my father’s customers to send in their payments and would be out of money until then. I, in my childish naivety, asked my mother why there had to be money in the first place; why didn’t people just go to work and then when they needed something just go to the store and get it? My mother chuckled at the idea and told me things just didn’t work like that. Eventually I grew up and realized the folly of such a notion. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/95 "2010-07-10T07:30:56Z")
_Pantries_, dammit, _pantries_! I hate when I have a good rant going and then screw up the spelling of some word. Why don’t I ever catch this stuff on preview? :smack: Oh, well…cest la vy. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/96 "2010-07-10T07:42:19Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > _Pantries_, dammit, _pantries_! > > I hate when I have a good rant going and then screw up the spelling of some word. Why don’t I ever catch this stuff on preview? :smack: > > Oh, well…cest la vy. Given the intensity of your retraction, I thought you might have typed ‘panties.’ I am so disappointed. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/97 "2010-07-10T07:47:43Z")
🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/98 "2010-07-10T11:32:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > This is an interesting conundrum: > > By the author’s own admission, she makes a practice of patronizing children’s lemonade stands, “What a _dear_ little lemonade stand! Did you make it all by yourselves? And at your age too! Oh, Hubert, you simply must come and look at this. Such clever children!” ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/99 "2010-07-12T15:13:49Z")
Even in the followup, she’s still missing the point that the girls would be starting with ingredients and materials given to them _by their parents_. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976/100 "2010-07-12T16:11:28Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > That sounds like something Stephen Colbert would say. Thanks. I wish he’d return my calls about the writing job. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-suck-and-i-blow-also-communist-little-girls-and-their-communisty-lemonade-stand-fixed-title/545976.md?page=6)