This is making the rounds on the web...(political, partisan)

And it may have been posted here before. I checked and didn’t find it, but then that isn’t the easiest search function in the world. I couldn’t search for phrases, and most of the other words are too common to look for, even in combinations. (If anyone has any tips about this, please, offer them!)

A Day in the Life of Joe 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 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.

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.”

~Author unknown (to me)

Anna Belle

What are you looking for, exactly?

For the record, it was Eisenhower who fought for (and won) the federal interstate highway system, not one of us dirty pinkoes. In fact, any number of the things mentioned in the article (opinion piece?) were enacted by Republican congresses back when the parties effectively occupied opposite ends of the spectrum.

There’s a roundly similar thingy called “One Hundred Per Cent American” which talks about how many of the products and substances we use are foreign in nature, or at least were first used someplace else. Neither piece is particularly astonishing to anyone with half a brain and a middling grasp of history.

Just where was the interstate system mentioned?

Or did you just want to throw that in?

Perhaps referring to this:

  1. I’m not looking for anything. I just thought one or two other people here might appreciate the sentiment, even if there a couple of errors.

  2. When they were at the other end of the spectrum then they were liberal, no? The piece never used the word democrat. Anyone with half a brain and a middling grasp of reading can see that. :wink:

I think this is an email “glurge” that has started in the last month or so.

I have no doubt that www.snopes.com will have a take on in in the future. They have nothing at this point.l

Probably so. I found it at punkvoter.com.

Yes, well spotted. Anyone with half a brain and a middling grasp of reading would also have noticed the title: A Day in the Life of Joe Republican. I hope you aren’t suggesting that isn’t a reference to modern parties?

I didn’t mean to come off as snarky in the above post or the first one, presidebt. I was just pointing out that it isn’t as if everyone doesn’t know all this stuff…

Thanks. I appreciate that.

Let me explain how I read this title and the essay. The title gives us the character, Joe Republican, who (as we see in the essay) uses all the amenities of modern day life, so we know he is set firmly here in the present. Under the premise of the essay, a lot of the things he uses exist because of liberal policy throughout a range of history. What matters here is who was liberal when, not who is republican now. We know who is republican now—Joe. I suspect that was the point of using the disparate labels. These labels are not synonyms as they are applied in this essay, or, in fact, by definition (though are often used as such in modern American political discourse). Does that make it clearer?