Here is a joke that is circulating via email. I received it from life-long friend of my family. I feel like I need to share it here, and my response to it. I don't want to share it because I think it is very interesting, or because I think my response to it is very clever. Rather, I am embarrassed that I couldn't construct a better response to someone who I love very much. Many of my closest friends are Republicans. I am hurt by the tone and content of the rhetoric they distribute. Yet, for all my education and passion, I think I can't do any better than to sound like an idealogue. How should liberals respond to these vicious attacks? I remember Noam Chomsky saying once that the victim of mud-slinging is in a no win situation. All he can do is deny the allegation, but that only reinforces the connection between himself and the charge. Is there no other way? How do we defend ourself from bad arguments and mean-spirited attacks? Please give your ideas...
The joke from my friend,
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat and was for distribution of all wealth. She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican -- which she expressed quite openly. One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and more welfare programs. In the middle of her heart felt diatribe based upon the lectures from her professors at school, he stopped her and asked her point blank, "How are you doing in school?" She answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain. That she had to study all the time, never had time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending all her time studying. That she was taking a more difficult curriculum. Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Mary doing?" She replied, "Mary is barely getting by." She continued, "All she has is barely a 2.0 GPA," adding, "and all she takes are easy classes and she never studies." To explain further she continued emotionally, "But Mary is so very popular on campus. College for her is a blast... She goes to parties all the time and very often doesn't even show up for classes because she is too hung over." The father then asked, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a two point." He continued, "That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of the GPA." The daughter, visibly shocked by the father's
suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I worked really hard for mine, I did without and Mary has done little or nothing; she played while I worked really hard!" The father slowly smiled and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."
My reply,
Hey -,
Sorry I haven't written for a while... Meggan and I are trying to find time to make a trip to Southern California to visit all of our friends down there. I don't know whether the humor of the story you sent is supposed to derive from stupidity of the father, but in any case I have stories for you, too!
A recently married woman who is the interim director of a dispute resolution center in Seattle went to a city council meeting to request funds so that her office could continue to help save the court system from time-consuming litigations and to help disputants find their own solutions to their problems. While there, she was reduced to tears while watching everyone from suffering AIDS patients to volunteers at centers working to keep children off of drugs beg and plead for the funds necessary to keep themselves, or their work, alive. They were denied, of course, because there are enough Republicans in Washington state that every proposed state tax increase has been voted down for years, and existing levies have been repealed. The missing funds are fatal for even the most successful programs, like Head Start, because the Republican party controls national politics and has diverted federal support to tax breaks for the wealthy. Welcome to the Republican party. Ha! Funny, isn't it!!
Here's another story:
One of my mother's closest friends, -, contracted cancer while he was temporarily without health insurance. He had worked hard his whole life to accumulate enough wealth so that he, his wife, and their daughter would be comfortable when he retired. Unfortunately, in the United States the Republican party has stonewalled every attempt at health care reform, so that unlike Costa Ricans and Canadians, Americans don't have any federal health coverage. - spent every last bit of his savings trying to stay alive. From his own pocket, he had to pay the inflated fees for health care that are driven through the roof by insurance companies, kept in business by our dependence on them. Near the end of his life, when it was apparent he would lose his battle against cancer, - declared that it would have been better if he had just given up and died immediately so that his daughter could have gone to the university of her choice and his wife would have been able to grieve for a short time in the house they had purchased together rather than feel lonely in an empty apartment and reenter the work force right away. For -, fifty years of sweat and hard work was worth the feeling that he had failed the ones he loved most in this world. Welcome to the Republican party! Ha ha!!
Here's one, last cute story:
Republicans cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans so that they could invest their money in companies that increase their value by shipping American jobs overseas. In this way, they increased their own personal worth and practiced trickle-down economics in China, India, and Indonesia. Then, they started an expensive and unnecessary war in Iraq that they had been dreaming about for 15 years, and ensured that generations of people accross the globe will hate and fear our country. The combination of the war and the tax cuts resulted in a federal budget deficit so huge and unmanageable that retiring baby boomers threatened the federal government with bankruptcy. Social services and community services were killed off altogether, sending the United States back to the days before the New Deal, when the poorest Americans lived like Haitians and had no hope for self-improvement. Grover Nordquist and Karl Rove called this "starving the beast". They and other Republicans gave each other high-fives and hand shakes. They had ensured that nobody would be unfairly taking their "hard earned" income. Welcome to the Republican party! Ha ha ha. I'm in stitches.
I'm sorry if I didn't think your email was funny. As a scientist dependent on federal funds to do important biomedical research, I can't laugh at a Republican party that learns its science from the Bible and its morality from summer blockbuster action movies.
The results of this bad and tragically unfunny mixture are:
- Republican politicians using federal grant funding programs to tell scientists what they can and can't study.
- Republicans ignoring the consensus of the scientific community on everything from global warming to the availability of cell lines for stem cell research.
- Republicans allowing Christian doctrine like creationism to be inserted into public schools and court houses.
- The recruitment of Christian missionaries to important positions of federal charity at the national and international level, even when they are overseeing the distribution of aid to groups with whom they have traditionally been uncooperative (Muslims, atheists, etc.).
- The legislation of hatred and intolerance towards homosexuals and immigrants.
- The maintenance of a punitive justice system based solely on punishment and incarceration that functions prejudicially towards minorities and the poor.
As a private citizen, I can't laugh at a Republican party that:
- Tells doctors how they are supposed to practice medicine by outlawing abortion procedures even when they necessary to protect the mother's health, and by seeking to eliminate the use of marijuana as a medicine without subjecting it to the same tests or standards applied to other drugs.
- Tells churches who they can and cannot marry, and tells individual states to whom they may or may not grant a civil union.
- Establishes ideological litmus tests for states and foreign governments to receive federal support.
P.S. I'm also sorry if your note was meant to point out the idiocy of Republicans who think that personal income is similar to academic grading. You should know that my college did not use a letter grading system, so that students would not be distracted or discouraged by the idea of competition with their peers. Reed college graduated the second highest number of future PhDs in the country while I was there, right between CalTech and MIT. And, despite the college's disdain for ranking systems, was recently listed as one of the five most academically rigorous universities in the nation. The usefulness of grades is for teachers to give students feedback that they can use to judge their own improvement in a discipline. On the other hand, income represents exchangeable resources. If it is in one person's Hummer automobile, it is not buying medicine for a sick child. The reason why democracy works in America is that we believe in maintaining a balance between rewarding success and paying for the system that provides the freedom to move one's self out of abject poverty or difficult circumstances. My wife and I tithe 10% of our income every month to our church in addition to the taxes we pay, and we donate even more money to various charitable causes. We are not rich, yet we manage to be happy and comfortable. It is certainly true that if we horded all of our wealth, or spent it for our own amusement, we could have more extravagant lives. But, we feel good knowing that we are doing our part to give others the same opportunities that we have had. We also know that as our personal resources grow, we are more and more indebted to a society that cares for its poor and trains valuable new innovators and workers.
Love,
Alex