I'm going to simply present the story as it was sent to me (but I won't site where it was posted so you have a slightly less biased view).

<A Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican
by Donna L. Lavins and Sheldon Cotler>


Joe gets up at 6:00 AM to prepare his morning coffee.
He fills his pot with 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 that they work as advertised.

All but $10.00 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 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 that is contains because
some liberal fought for his right to know what he was
putting on his body and the breakdown of its contents.
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 meets 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 worker's compensation or an unemployment check
because some liberal didn't think he should loose his
home to temporary misfortune.

It's noon time. Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he
can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured
by the FSLIC 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 lifetime.

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).

Joe is happy to see his dad, who is now retired. Joe's
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, Joe gets back in his car for the ride home. He
turns on a radio talk show. The host 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."

In the years to come, Joe's life will change
dramatically. The U.S. dollar will be devalued as a
result of our huge deficit, our living standards
demolished, our standing with the world diminished and
our social security gone...all because some
conservative republican made sure he could take care
of himself and his buddies.

******************************************************
Tell me what you all think of this - please limit it to "Intelligent" arguements. I can respect, understand, and debate the issues with someone who has well thought out ideas and is coherent - but I can't stand someone that simply goes that way because a parent or friend says so. Think for yourself. This goes for my most feverent advesary that I cant agree with as well as the dumb idiot that may simply like me better - know what you're about and I love America for all of you about to try to rip me a new one.

Frank works 20 hours a week at Taco Bell making $6.50 per hour. He has been fired from several jobs for not showing up to work. He could probably get a much better job if he would just commit himself to actually showing up. But if he did that some liberal would stop giving him Joe's money, and he would have to start providing from himself. So Frank just sits at home and watches satellite TV that Joe pays for.

I'm not sure how the liberal's get all the credit for the good things that Joe is experiencing. I have a hard time believing that only "liberals" fought for somethings like medical insurance and accurate labeling on products.

liberals suck. go GOP!

So let me get this straight. You want an intelligent discussion to result from something that is so obviously totally slanted that you will not even post the source of it.



Here's an idea, how about you follow your own advice instead of posting some half-truthed story from a website with a poor reputation or a decidely unfair bias. Just because it is seen as a "plank" in today's democratic party does not mean that it was created by them. By that logic one would have to say that the repbulicans are responsible for medicare and improved school funding since those now seem to be planks in their party platform. Try reading books by repubtable sources, which are historically, factually based. Perhaps then you can have an intelligent discussion which you seem to so desire. I'll even give you some information to begin digesting. Upon rating our past Presidents, 78 equally baised professionals of law, politics and history found nearly no significant deviation between the greatness of democratic and republican presidents. I'm sure they (people who have studied this stuff for a living) must have just forgotten the overly amazing things the dems accomplished. I just finished the book and would lend it to you if you really want to learn something.

No - I simply didnt want people to do just what you're doing and reject the site out of hand because of where it came from. If the site is anti Christian a Christian will likely ignore anything from there out of hand, anything from a communist website will be rejected as random garbage by the mainstream, and people tend to start ignoring something that came from somewhere they didnt like. I want an itelligent counter-arguement. I want a discussion based on the merrits of the arguement - not a fight about well Kerry is a moron cause this is on his site or Bush is a moron because that is on his site - debate the topic not the person.

That said, look at each part of the arguements. You're calling it planks and have obviously done too much highschool debate. It has nothing to do with "planks" of the platform - they are simply the people that fought for it. The arguement is who got us there in the 1st place, and who is repealing many of the laws that were finally put into place to help everyone out.

I am REALLY sorry to say it, but Chad is the only one thats even put forth half an arguement. And if you dont believe it Paradigm put forth something that says otherwise - even simply an arguement saying that.

And that AC exactly proves my point. No thought, just saying I'm not going to listen. If you know what you're about and can form half an oppinion based off fact and reasoning then I can have some respect for you.

And Lowman, saying you're going to try to change something about medicare and school funding doesnt mean that it will be better. In fact, if you would like to argue that, why hasn't everything improved in the last 4 years with a fully Republican government? Why are we running the record deficits, job loss, etc...? The isn't much more you can ask then a GOP run Presidency and Congress, plus having lies to the US Congress streamlined through to create such atrocities such as the "Patriot Act" (Plenty of others like that but that ones taking my main focus). And argue something about the arguements - I've read and continue to read plenty on history and politics - and the greatness of the presidents isnt what we are really discussing. I have alot of respect for Presidents from the GOP such as Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, but the whole discussion I'm trying to bring up is who fought for all of the things many of you preparing to vote for the GOP ticket take for granted? And somehow I doubt all of those are going to completely disappear, but bring in some counter arguements if someone else did those things. Argue the merits of the story not who said them...

I believe this falls under the category of "I'm right until you prove me wrong" arguements.

For example, did you know that watermelons are blue on the inside until you break the skin?

My religious convictions are correct because you can't prove them wrong.

Just because you can't prove something wrong doesn't make it right. If I say there are beings that inhabit a planet somewhere in this universe that look exactly like human sized tacos that crap ice cream, you can't prove me wrong because you cannot (atleast at this point and time) know what is going on across the entire universe. So under your logic there would have to be human sized tacos that crap ice cream.

Dude, you just ripped that taco idea off of South Park.

You get 10 points.

And, for reference, I believe that something that has neither been proven correct nor incorrect is considered just that: unproven.

I didn't want to get into this further since I'm sick of having to do reasearch to prove my points to people like you (who are too lazy to do your own), but here we go again. First off, you make the assumption that I'm a major Bush supporter, this is a fallacy. I can barely stomach Bush more than Kerry. Will I vote for him? Possibly, unless Kerry can show me something other than "what Bush did was all bad, and I'll be better." Am I a conservative, to an extent, yes I am. I believe in smaller government, but I am also a strong supporter of many government protections of workers and environment. You demean the whole system by making this a black/white issue of the liberals did all the good stuff and the republicans have done nothing, therefore any middle class conservatives are hypocritical at best.

It's crap like this article that has made our nation so polarized at this time. People care way to damn much about what party is supporting something rather than the actual merits of the policy. It is precisely because of this idealogcal banter that our country is still mired in problems that should have been resolved years ago. Since the public is too stupid to see through it, both sides have used failed policies of the other to bash them and say "look how terrible they are", instead of saying "they were wrong, but lets work together to get it right." This is why BOTH presidential candidates are mediocre at best politicians and not tried and true leaders.

Here's some facts to refute your ignorant claims

**Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act -- The Clean Air Act (CAA) was originally intended in 1955 to control unspecified particles from being emitted into the air by factories. The regulations were too vague so major revisions were made in 1970, 1977, and 1990. Now there is a list of 190 hazardous air pollutants. Emissions considered harmful to the air are regulated by the EPA through a system of national emission limits and permits.
**The Clean Water Act -- (CWA) was passed into law in 1972. This law was the result of environmental irresponsibility such as large scale dumping of toxic chemicals into the Great Lakes. It is well known that the Cyahoga River actually caught fire in 1969 in Cleveland, Ohio. People who swim and fish in Lake Erie can thank the EPA for enforcing strict laws that have resulted in the clean-up of the lake.

See those years there, 55, 70, 72, 77, 90?
1955 - President: Eisenhower (R)
- Congress: 221 Republicans, 213 Democrats
- Senate: Site currently down

1970 - President: Nixon (R)
- Congress: 243 Democrats, 192 Republicans

1972 - President: Nixon (R)
- Congress: 255 Democrats, 180 Republicans

1977 - President Carter (D)
- Congress: 292 Democrats, 143 Republicans

1990 - President Bush (R)
- Congress: 260 Democrats, 175 Republicans

Food and Drug Administration created in 1927 and modernized in 30, revised in 33, etc etc.
1927 - President: Coolidge (R)
- Congress: 238 Republicans, 194 Democrats, 2 Farmer, 1 Socialist

1930 - President: Hoover (R)
- Congress: 270 Republicans, 164 Democrats, 1 Farmer-Labor

1933 - President FDR (D)
- Congress: 313 Democrats, 117 Republicans, 5 Farmer-Labor

And I could go on like this since nearly every year or so a significant milestone piece of legislation was passed for the FDA, not by all democratic presidents/congresses/senates. This is my point, I don't know what you associate with these policies by calling them "liberal owned". Please prove me wrong and show me how the liberals passed these laws through the republican majority senates or were not vetoed by the republican presidents? The opposite is also true. This is what I was talking about earlier. Sheer numbers alone show that there was at least some Republican support for these policies otherwise they would not become laws. If you want the rest of the info on your other stuff here's my sources for info.

http://clerk.house.gov/histHigh/Congressional_History/index.html
http://www.fda.gov/opacom/backgrounders/miles.html
http://www.denison.edu/sec-safe/safety/epastand.html[/img]

You were in Dr. Meagher's PolySci 316 last year...c'mon, you know Nixon was liberal!


(This post not meant for serious debate)

How has my secret identity been found out?!?!

Oh yeah, I forgot about all of the people in the liberal camp saying that Nixon was victim of a conservative conspiracy.

LowMan has just said exactly what I wanted to say without me having to go look it up. I commend you for your efforts and would like to second your post. However that works. I just want someone to show me where liberals spearheaded all the efforts in that beginning story. I could make up a similar story where conservatives did it all. Why? Because I have no sources.

And Aha, you want us to take at face value what your post says.... when it has no source and no supporting facts. It's just that, a story... no more... not even source for valid debate, since essentially, without facts it is debating fiction.

Your inability to recognnize satire will never cease to amaze me. Did the wink and agreeing tone with the previous poster not tip you off enough?