# To the liberals who utterly dominate the season-ticket holding ranks for the Wash Nat Opera **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 30, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667 "2013-10-30T18:27:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/61 "2013-10-30T21:47:50Z")
Oh. Oh my stars and garters. Oh, oh, oh. People at an opera event support public funding for the arts. Someone bring the smelling salts. I mean, have you _ever_? ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/62 "2013-10-30T21:48:23Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Also, that’s what Bricker could wisecrack about: “Yeah, without the governmental trough, they’d just have to depend on us poor subscription holders! A tragic shame isn’t it!” If they don’t sing too often, they can break even. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/63 "2013-10-30T22:04:48Z")
> [@pravnik](#): > > You’re lucky. The one time I went to the opera I couldn’t even hear the thing because a bunch of buttholes got up on the stage and yelled the whole way through it. I’m backstage during a show and I totally Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there’d at this. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/64 "2013-10-30T22:12:25Z")
I think the important point that’s missed here is that you went to the opera?! They have movies now, with special effects and scenery changes that doesn’t require curtains closing or a stupid intermission and forgotten lines :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/65 "2013-10-30T22:34:29Z")
I hereby nominate \*\*Bricker \*\*for “Most Thin-Skinned” doper of the year. I mean, really. I’m so underwhelmed by this pitting that I’m completely at a loss for words. The only reason I’m responding to this thread is because I simply wanted my nomination to be recorded for posterity. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/66 "2013-10-30T22:36:51Z")
I am a liberal and an opera-lover (and a Catholic, since that seems to have entered into this discussion). I get a subscription packate to the Metropolitan Opera here in NYC every year (I don’t think that’s exactly the same as “season tickets”). On the subject of public funding of opera companies, I kind of agree with **Bricker**. Even if I were in favor of public arts funding (and I don’t really care that much about it – it’s fine when the budget permits, but there are a _lot_ of things that should have higher priority), it seems to me that opera appeals to such a tiny minority of the public (and that minority is largely, although not entirely, a well-heeled minority) that it seems that public funding of opera is a trickle-up proposition, and that’s something I don’t like very much. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/67 "2013-10-30T22:47:51Z")
My feeling is that it’s good the well-heeled opera lover is able to get a trifle tossed at them from the government. It keeps them from thinking they don’t benefit from the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/68 "2013-10-30T22:51:49Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > She is charming, but she is rightwards of me. She just doesn’t like public confrontation. > > **But at home, I’m the liberal.** 😉 > [@Bricker](#): > > I’ve used this story before, but since it seems necessary again. > > When I was young, we had the board game “Monopoly,” as did many of my friends. My friends almost universally played with a “house rule,” in which the money collected from fines, and sometimes even from house and property sales from the bank, went into the center of the board, and was claimed by landing on “free parking.” > > That’s not how we played when my house was the locale. Our “house rule” was the actual Monopoly rulebook, which clearly provided that Free Parking was just a resting spot, and garnered the player no money or other benefits. I would argue, when playing at someone else’s house, that we should follow the actual rules of the game. Often I would be outvoted, and the game would use the money-in-the-middle/Free-parking rule. > > Taking the money, if I then landed on Free Parking, is not hypocrisy. > > Do you understand why, **sylmar**? At long last we are in agreement. Free Money is the _worst_ Monopoly house rule and it’s the one that makes everybody hate the game since it extends them for hours. ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/69 "2013-10-30T23:01:24Z")
Could any Monopoly rules lawyers in the house let me know about the game-legality of entering into contracts? Whenever I’ve been able to rouse up enough of my nerdy asshole friends (the kind that enjoys arguing over numbers and dice rolls more than anything else), we’ve had great games where we loan each other money at interest, buy and sell shares of monopolies, trade or sell insurance for landing on properties, and so on. Interestingly all of the above hasn’t made games drag any. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/70 "2013-10-30T23:13:16Z")
I have a feeling this thread won’t be over until the fat lady sings. ---
**Author:** ![Trion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/71 "2013-10-30T23:17:47Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Oh. Oh my stars and garters. Oh, oh, oh. People at an opera event support public funding for the arts. Someone bring the smelling salts. I mean, have you _ever_? What a swell party this is… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/72 "2013-10-30T23:38:28Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You know, I’d kind of assume that most opera fans are conservative. > > Of course, I also assume that they dress like the guy from Monopoly, even when at home, so what do I know? Only the liberal middle class wants publicly funded culture. Think of the people who watch PBS. As a card-carrying liberal myself, I’m a little agnostic about this. Most well-off countries have public funding for the arts, but most of them would recoil in horror at the idea of public funding for single-use stadia like we have here. There are publicly funded sporting venues in the UK (for example), but they are multipurpose arenas and things and the local teams don’t get [sweetheart revenue deals](http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/bucs/content/raymond-james-stadium-project-reminder-glazers-sweetheart-deal); they pay to rent the facility for their events like everyone else. ETA: I think **Measure for Measure** ’s mention of the Smithsonian is an interesting point. I don’t care if the US has a showcase for culture, but I value the Smithsonian as an educational institution. I don’t think opera or orchestras or theaters are educational, per se. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/73 "2013-10-30T23:47:34Z")
> [@bup](#): > > An easier-to-grasp and real-world switcheroo for us libs is offering us the opportunity to pay more in taxes because we think taxes should be higher. I pay the lowest legal tax I can, but I think taxes should be higher, and I’m not a hypocrite. Agreed absolutely. You think taxes should be higher as a matter of good public policy – that doesn’t mean you, personally, should volunteer to pay something that others in your income bracket are not. > [@](#): > > [sup]1[/sup]Yes, I know it happens. That’s the point. I’ve even been offered pre-written postcards with [del]my[/del] the correct feelings on abortion that the government should enforce. Not everybody can see the difference between ‘here’s what I think,’ and ‘here’s what I think the government should do.’ If you know it happens – then aren’t you proving my point? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/74 "2013-10-30T23:49:26Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Nor am I hypocritical in seeing opera that benefits from government grants. Er, yes you are, and your followup post indicates that you’re reacting to the fact that somebody called you out on it. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/75 "2013-10-30T23:54:28Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I too fail to see the big deal. > > Let’s say that your church receives government grants to carry out its Good Works. Your church would not be able to do these Good Works without government funding. You are really a fan of these Good Works and do your part to help them succeed. Let’s say liberals get an ultra-atheistic government installed that wants to abolish all faith-based programs, starting with grants to religious organizations. You are informed of a specific plan while volunteering at your church. Your priest urges everyone to write a sternly worded letter to your state representative to let them know what will happen if the proposal goes forward. > > Is your priest wrong for assuming you’d be on board with this? > > How else is he supposed to get like-minded individuals to help him protect something ya’ll apparently care about? If such a subject came up, I would hope that the attitude would be vastly different than the “Of course, everybody who’s anybody agrees we should do this,” thing I experienced. > [@](#): > > Your other issue about people wrongly assuming you share their values because ya’ll have similar interests is something most of us have encountered before. It sure can be irritating sometimes, but it is hardly a “liberal” thing. Ain’t really pit worthy either IMHO, but YMMV. I suppose it’s possible I never noticed it in such an irritatingly-displayed way before, then. And I suppose it’s possible I never noticed the conservatives doing it because it didn’t trigger any outrage. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/76 "2013-10-30T23:55:30Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Er, yes you are, and your followup post indicates that you’re reacting to the fact that somebody called you out on it. What kind of fucked-up logic is this? If I disagree that I’m hypocritical, then …that proves I’m hypocritical? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/77 "2013-10-30T23:57:25Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Er, yes you are, and your followup post indicates that you’re reacting to the fact that somebody called you out on it. No, that’s stupid. Read **bup** ’s analogy and then tell me how it differs. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2013, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/78 "2013-10-30T23:58:54Z")
> [@drew870mitchell](#): > > Could any Monopoly rules lawyers in the house let me know about the game-legality of entering into contracts? Whenever I’ve been able to rouse up enough of my nerdy asshole friends (the kind that enjoys arguing over numbers and dice rolls more than anything else), we’ve had great games where we loan each other money at interest, buy and sell shares of monopolies, trade or sell insurance for landing on properties, and so on. > > Interestingly all of the above hasn’t made games drag any. I have answers. The rules specifically forbid any player from giving money to any other player, except as outlined by the rules. So “interest” would be forbidden, as would “loans.” Of course, alliances being legal, I suppose you could agree to buy a property for $500 and then sell it back for $600 in a few turns, thus gaining $100 that was part of some interest deal. But these would be extra-legal agreements, unenforceable if the recipient of the loan decided to default. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/79 "2013-10-31T00:00:21Z")
> [@sylmar](#): > > So there was another opera you could have gone to where everyone agreed to pay the full share thus making moot the need for federal subsidizing, but you decided not to go to that one? No, I don’t understand why you didn’t go to that one Brick. No. But you seem to have wandered away from the meaning of the word “hypocrite.” It doesn’t mean, “Meanie who does stuff I don’t like.” ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667/80 "2013-10-31T00:00:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Of course, alliances being legal, I suppose you could agree to buy a property for $500 and then sell it back for $600 in a few turns, thus gaining $100 that was part of some interest deal. But these would be extra-legal agreements, unenforceable if the recipient of the loan decided to default. Well, you have one appeal to the court of Flipping the Board Over and Storming Off in a Huff as a matter of right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-liberals-who-utterly-dominate-the-season-ticket-holding-ranks-for-the-wash-nat-opera/672667.md?page=5)