Many of you are aware that, for years, I traveled in conservative circles. As such, I am still on a number of what are considered conservative email lists. I still get the emails, and I still read them. In fact, I am glad I do, because one of the things that got me out of the current wingnuttosphere is that when I was a Republican, I listened to and read a lot of Democrats. I read the Daily Kos every day, I read Kevin Drum, I read Matt Yglesias, I embraced the Huffington Post. I think diversity of opinion is an important thing, and I like to come to my own conclusions, however addled and foolish I may be.
At any rate, I received the following email on one of my “conservative” email lists the other day:
Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read “Vote Obama, I need the money.” I laughed.
Once in the restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08” tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference–just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need–the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I ‘ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient needed money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
In and of itself, no big deal. The kind of thing that passes as conservative humor, and something that I am sure has ricocheted around right-wing blogs and email lists everywhere. However, listen to Nicole Wallace, one of the chief McCain flaks, today on NPR. Start paying attention at around 3:35 in the interview:
Listen, you go into a restaurant and instead of leaving a tip, you stiff the waitress and give it to the homeless person outside, it is a noble thing to do, it is spreading money earned by that waitress and giving it someone outside.
Sound familiar?
Look- the intellectual wing of the Republican party is dead. What is left are brain-dead acolytes spreading meaningless and simplistic anecdotes, trite stories, and distilled nonsense passed on that has a more fitting home in AM radio. The McCain campaign, once again, is just a symptom of the real problem- an intellectually incurious and lazy movement in the final ugly spasms of death. The McCain campaign is now, in their interviews with the press, spreading what we can all recognize as wingnut email chains.
RIP, Republicans.
*** Update ***
Via the comments, here the same story is in the letters to the editor at the Chicago Tribune:
On my way to lunch recently, I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read “Vote Obama; I need the money.” I laughed. In a restaurant my server had on an “Obama 08” tie. Again I laughed. Just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came, I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Barack-Obama-redistribution-of-wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need—the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment, I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more. I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
—A. Hart, Forest Park
Nicole Wallace, lead McCain surrogate, with nothing to offer but astroturf. This was once a proud movement.
*** Update #2 ***
Sam Adams Hefeweizen is so bad it should be a felony. If Obama does usher in the NEW WORLD ORDER, first on the chopping block are these jackasses for their crimes against the reinheitsgebot. Christ, this is ten pounds of suck in a sixteen ounce bottle. Thank God I have three UFO’s left. This Sam Adams is borderline flat, has no body, a bland to nonexistent aftertaste, and almost a fake sweet quality like it fell into a vat of shitty honey brown. If this was the last beer I was to drink before my impending execution, I would just ask them to give me a piss-jar of Corona or shoot me without having a beer.
This Sam Adams crap was the hefeweizen equivalent of having sex while wearing eight condoms. If someone offers you one, give them the finger.
The Moar You Know
Stiffing the waitstaff. Always a sure sign of a real class act.
Comrade Jake
I am SO sick of these asshats.
kommrade jakevich
There are Obama ’08 ties?
Damn.
Oh well, I seriously doubt the events in that story occurred anywhere outside of the writer’s head but I hope I’m wrong.
If I’m wrong that douchesucker will return to that restaurant. And the waiter and the bus boy and the kitchen staff and all the other people who get a cut of the tips will be there.
And for some period of time they’ll be alone with his food.
jakevich’s #1 rule for survival: Do not fuck with people who handle your food.
slightly_peeved
Of course, in many more left-leaning countries (I won’t say "socialist", because they aren’t), waitstaff wouldn’t be offended – in fact, they don’t expect tips, since they’re actually paid a decent living wage.
And he’d often have a bit more of a walk to find a homeless person, too.
jnfr
I could both tip my waiter and donate to homeless people. Guess that never occurs to them.
Jay Andrew Allen
My mother is a social worker for Downtown Emergency Services Center in Seattle, which works with the homeless community here. She has me under standing instructions NOT to give money to the homeless. Most of them get some form of assistance; many are mentally unstable. You give them money, you may inhibit them from entering a system that can best determine what assistance they need, if they need psychiatric care, whether they’re capable of working, etc. That’s the point of such programs. They don’t "redistribute wealth"; they pool resources to create a better environment for everyone.
All of this is besides the point, of course, because (say it with me) Obama’s tax plan WOULDN’T TAX A WAITER OR HIS TIPS.
Sigh.
I wondered if this wingnut bothered to ask the server about how dynamite his health insurance coverage was. For all he knew, that guy had a sick kid and was working two jobs to pay off $20,000 in medical debt.
RML
So the Wing Nuts do not have any Christian values..doesn’t surprise me in the least. If I was the waiter, I wouldn’t mind my tip going to someone who needed it more than I. I still get my salary and there are more tips to be had (I was a waiter many years ago). Sometimes you have to give a little to get a little. I was raised and taught in my Church that If you help the lesser of us all, you help everyone. What a concept straight out of the Bible…something the Wing Nuts profess to believe in but in reality don’t. I know this was a joke but a terrible one. I know a lot of hard working people who are begging for help…and it’s no joke to them this horrible economy. Its too bad that the once great GOP is morally bankrupt and caters to the worse human instincts. Folks like Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft and Chuck Hagel need to take back their Party.
Cassidy
@jnfr: But being an ass is so much easier.
Mary
Got the same joke in an email from my boss today. I let him have it. I sent him a long email back about the benefits of progressive taxation. He called me laughing about how obsessed I was. But I think I have made some progress with him. If he votes, he will still vote McCain, but I am hoping he might sit this one out. One person at a time.
I can proudly say that my husband of 20 years is really political for the first time in his 60 years and he is pro Obama, pro Democrat (never voted in his life until maybe 8 years ago). It takes time to take someone who was raised in an evangelical home, totally brainwashed by racism and distain for education, to change. But they can.
demkat620
You think this stuff is more like one of those pyramid schemes or a Nigerian email scam?
Prematurely Grey
Will Morning Joe tell this story tomorrow morning, or will it be one of the McCain hacks?
alec
Well that explains the Pajama Media ads. :|
dmsilev
Amusingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, that exact same "joke" appeared word for word in a Letter to the Editor in this morning’s Chicago Tribune.
Guess the astroturfers are still out in force.
-dms
JGabriel
The whole thing is obviously a lie. A real wingnut would have given the homeless guy a used dog-eared copy of Atlas Shrugged.
Or the Bible. Same difference to those guys, really.
.
Jay Andrew Allen
I meant to say Obama’s plan wouldn’t RAISE taxes on the waiter. Unless, of course, he made over $250,000. I haven’t met many waiters in that tax bracket.
Gregory
Fixed for accuracy.
Comrade Jake
Didn’t Obama, when speaking with Joe the Asshole Plumber, state something about making sure to always tip waitresses a little bit more?
kth
Wouldn’t you have to be king of the waiters for Obama’s tax hike to ever affect you? Like, assuming you are waiting at some swanky place where everyone tips 20%, your tables would have to gross $1,250,000, or $5000 * 250 nights a year? Maybe the maitre’ds at ultra-haute cuisine places in NY and Paris make that kind of money, but there are (generously) probably not more than a thousand such people on the face of the earth.
bud
And if I were acting like a Republican, I’d keep the tip, tell the waitress I was going to invest it in some stock, and maybe, just maybe, a CEO will make a little more money and get lunch at the restaurant sometime in the future.
Of course, don’t expect a tip from him. After all he needs to keep the kids in private school so that one day they too will come to the restaurant.
Oh, and on the way out I make sure to tell the homeless guy to get a job and throw him some bootstraps. I don’t care if he’s an Iraq war veteran with PTSD.
DragonScholar
So let’s see here.
It’s tradition and good form to tip the waitstaff. They will pay part of that in taxes.
Instead you stiffed the waitstaff and decided to give that money to someone else – who may indeed need it – but you still broke an unspoken social and in way economic principle.
Either way you actually did no good. A person that cared would pay the tip AND help the homeless guy.
DonkeyKong
I can’t wait til Nicole Wallace tells her cable news interviewer that tax cuts can add 4 inches to your penis.
Or tax cuts will invest your penis in gold coins.
Or praying for the troops will cut taxes on your penis.
Palin/Fetus 2012
nabalzbbfr
Here’s a great cartoon lampooning Obama’s redistribution scheme.
Jeff
If any of these pricks actually perform this act of labor robbery, I hope they get hit by a bus, their innards redistributed across the street.
(I waited tables for 8 years of college…hence my moderate response.)
DrDave
Proud, yes. Intelligent and forthright, no.
There was always an intellectual dishonesty among conservatives. It was revealed when Stockman went off the reservation and admitted that trickle down economics was a bullshit story line designed to gain popular support for policies designed to further enrich the wealthy.
So called conservatives have bankrupted the nation. They can all go fuck themselves.
kommrade jakevich
Busta
You people will never understand: When you cut the taxes of rich people, you are giving them back the money that they earned. When you cut the taxes of middle- and lower- class people, you are giving them money they didn’t earn and don’t deserve.
theo
What’s the blog that has the conservative fantasy watch? This is beyond fantasy, it’s Snopes.com material.
It’s a shame, because I was looking forward to hear about his next visit, and how "redistribution of the waiter’s bodily fluids" was easier to swallow in concept than in practical application.
Church Lady
I have already received this viral email three times in the past week or so. Another one making the rounds is the guys in the bar story, explaining the concept of progressive taxation. Less than a week to go and everyone’s life can return to normal, whatever normal is.
SalParadise
What’s funny about this is that the flip side of this "redistribution of wealth" meme is Obama supporters are pushing a citation of Adam Smith’s writings.
So we have the jingo right quoting chain emails & the lefties citing Adam Smith. Pretty easy to figure out which side has filed for intellectual bankruptcy.
Comrade Jake
Let’s be absolutely clear: the people who are distributing this "joke" are perfectly aware that the waitress gets a tax cut under Obama’s plan.
The entire objective of the redistribution meme is to suggest that money will be taken from hard-working people and given to those who don’t deserve it. Of course this is ridiculous, but these people have never cared about facts. Facts have a liberal bias.
gerry
The right’s claim to intellectual rigor is on a par with their adherence to principle, which is to say bogus. The whole free market worship is scientistic. It’s plausible if not examined too closely but all the arguments supporting it involve quantities of freedom and libery. If you are taxed more, your basket full of freedom just got a little lighter.
Alex Scott
I guess it never occurred to Conservative Storyteller that no matter whether you tipped the waiter or gave the money to the homeless guy…
… it’s still your wealth getting redistributed.
bhagamu
Today, on my way to Congress, I passed 45 million people without health insurance each holding a sign that read “Vote Obama, I need health care for my family.” I laughed.
Once in Congress, a visiting constituent had on a “Obama 08” tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference—just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to vote for the bill and explained to him that I was exploring my own method of giving health care using the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to stick him with a syringe and redistribute his blood to someone who I deemed more in need—one of the 45 million people outside. The constituent angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave those 45 million people a syringe of blood and told him to thank the constituent inside as I‘ve decided they could use the blood more. The almost-dead guy without health insurance said, "WTF?".
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized that I am a total dick.
David Robinson
What he doesn’t know is that the waiter is a follower of The Bush Doctrine and strikes preemptively.
David Robinson
Onion headline from 1993:
Uneducated Forklift Driver to Address Nation on Rush Limbaugh Radio Show
Nation Eagerly Awaits Ohio Man’s Profound Insight Into Current Events
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48941
jenniebee
That’s my main man Mark 12:40-44 sending out a big damnation notice to everyone out there trying to make a "moral" case against progressive taxation.
Comrade The Other Steve
Screw Malcolm X!
Obama’s Real Father was Frank Marshall Davis.
Who is Frank Marshall Davis?
I’m glad you asked. Because i don’t know either.
cleek
google "water homeless tip Obama" there are dozens of copies of this out there. looks like all within the past week, too.
Limniade
If the guy had really wanted a workable analogy, he would’ve stiffed the waiter, gone to a bank and given the $10 to a mortgage lender. Then gone to the homeless man, taken $1 out of his collection, and told him that the welfare state is socialism and people need to take personal responsibility for themselves.
Will
Dan Rodricks has a darn good response to this.
jcricket
I’m fine with this kind of claptrap. If this is the best they can come up with, we’re golden. There’s a joke in there, but not even the veneer of something that will be effective at the polls.
When people who care about empiricism and ideas and policy are abandoning your party in droves, you can’t replace them with astroturf and make up the difference.
kommrade jakevich
So let me get this straight. Camp McPOW is pushing a story that essentially says Republicans think it is funny to stiff people who rely on tips.
Brilliant!
bwaage
That’s funny, because leaving someone working a low wage job like that with less money in their pocket is much closer to McCain’s tax plan. It would’ve been just like it the person then gave those 10 dollars to a CEO or hedge fund manager.
jrg
My waiter was wearing Obama flair, so I ran over and punched a nearby Arab dude in the face.
His lawyer says the settlement will be huge, but since I’m a Republican, I get to charge it to my kid’s credit card.
Notorious P.A.T.
Ahahahaha! How funny! A homeless guy! What a hoot! There’s a 1 in 4 chance that homeless guy is a veteran and now he’s living on the street! Heeheehee!
gwangung
So the moral of the story is that Obama’s plan is bad because the rich don’t get to choose who they can be assholes to?
Notorious P.A.T.
I found one on Google.
LiberalTarian
Silly Republicans. They don’t leave tips!
Comrade Stuck
I must say, the way wingnuts can latch onto a meme and reproduce and pass it on to the next wingnut, without so much as a syllable out of place, is a thing of dark beauty. Doesn’t matter if it’s true, or half true, or an outright lie, or if the entire world tells them they are full of shit and proves it, they just keep on going like the Energizer Bunny on Chrystal Meth. It is an amazing phenomenon, almost supernatural in it’s precision. I don’t remember them having this ability before Karl Rove showed up, but maybe they did.
But now when the party is over, and the country is serious and focused, they can’t stop. Even though, like Sanchez today with Goldfarb on the Khalidi garbage, they refuse to practice any vestige of self examination. Even when slapped up side the head with hard undisputable facts, like that Mccain gave Khaladi’s organization 100’s of thousands of dollars, still no backing down. This kind of behaviour breeds irrational resentment, and it is going to get much worse before the Bough finally breaks in these people.
Comrade Darkness
Oh, come on. This is not about the reality of the financial life of the average person… this is about scoring cheap political points off other people’s pain.
slaney black
Ha! I heard her say that on NPR. Didn’t make a damn bit of sense to me at the time. Still doesn’t, but at least we know where she came up with it.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@DrDave: Proud, yes. Intelligent and forthright, no.
Thank you.
There was never anything noble about the conservative movement.
eyeball
1) Don’t believe this story for a second. This is made up, and I would guarantee that the "letter writer" – A. Hart – did not do this. This would be easy to check out. Tribune printed a lie.
2) and the punchline: the homeless guy was … John McCain … and the waitress was … Sarah Palin.
Svlad Jelly
Googling the "punchline" gets 1,830 hits.
Joshua Norton
So how’s about determining if the person is Repub or Dem before you even open you wallet and stiffing any and all wingnutz? I got you wealth redistribution right here, asshat.
Comrade Darkness
@gwangung:
FTW.
rufustfyrfly
You can tell it’s a hoax just from this line, nevermind the endless repetition. No restaurant would ever let its servers wear political flair.
Wini
@Church Lady: The beer one? I got the same thing and told the sender over the course of 4 very short, passive aggressive emails (maybe a total of 8 words?) that I was tired and very much looking forward to 8:00 CST (poll close in MN) on Nov. 4. I didn’t hear back from him.
Brian J
I actually started to argue with one of my bosses and two guys I work with today about this stuff. One of my bosses made the comment that he didn’t want his brother who lived with him and did nothing all day to get any money from the government. I try not to be really disrespectful of him or most people–even as I fail more in the second regard, especially with peers–but I either hinted or said outright that he and by coworkers no idea what he was talking about.
What they claim is very much not what Obama is proposing. He’s essentially proposing an increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit or an extension of the idea into an additional tax credit–I don’t remember his plans specifically off the top of my head–and this sort of policy has been in effect for many decades. It’s not going to affect this alleged person who wants to do nothing all year and scam the government for a small sum of money. It’s going to affect the people at the bottom of society, who work, and who need to catch a break. Comparing these people to the homeless is both insulting to them and to the homeless, who have a different set of needs that should be addressed. Comparing this program to socialism or communism is both ignorant and stupid.
As I said, this is well within the mainstream of American politics. Most people on both sides seem to agree with it. So when these people talk about this and don’t acknowledge the history or the logic behind the policy, it infuriates me. It also makes me realize that trying to have an informed discussion on this topic is that much harder, whether or not we agree politically.
Ed Marshall
I voted today because I’m not going to be in town on election day. I took monday through wednesday off to go pound doors in Gary Freaking Indiana and roust Obama voters out to the polls and get them a ride or whatever.
I want an ass pounding, I want the whole conservative movement in fetal position wondering where the next blow is going to land.
I took my vacation to go to GARY, INDIANA.
Brian J
As someone who works in a restaurant and has worked in other corporate places before, you’re absolutely right. The only way that this would be allowed is if the restaurant was independently owned and had such a nonchalant attitude about customer relations that pretty much any sort of contact was permitted–in other words, if the place was more like a bar. Of course, if I had to guess, that sort of restaurant, which seems few and far in between, wouldn’t attract the sort of person who would right that sort of e-mail.
r€nato
I’ve got a great idea for these jackholes:
The next time a waiter or waitress notices that one of his/her customers is a Republican, spit or urinate in their coffee.
Maybe that will illustrate to them that the philosophy of ‘fuck you I got mine’ sometimes bites you right in the ass.
Joe Beese
Once a proud movement?
"Yes — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists." – William F. Buckley, 1957
It had nothing to be proud of.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Joe Beese: It had nothing to be proud of.
Sadly, that never stops anyone from being proud who’s determined to be proud.
Jon H
Of course, since we’re talking marginal tax rates, a more accurate analogy would be if the douchebag added a cookie to his tab, and gave a slightly smaller tip on that portion of the bill, giving the difference to the homeless person.
But since Republicans are douchebags, an increased marginal rate for income above $250,000 is the same thing as total confiscation.
Mark S.
I don’t believe this guy had the balls to say that to the waiter’s face, and I sure as hell don’t believe he gave ten dollars to a homeless person. Why do I believe this? Because every 28 percenter I know is a tightwad pussy. They talk tough when they are with their fellow blowhards, but they turn even whiter than they already are when someone calls them on their shit. And they sure as hell don’t leave ten dollar tips wherever they eat.
Christ, I’ve gone from hoping Obama wins to hoping every Republican burns in fucking hell. Unfortunately, these guys aren’t going to shut up after they get their asses handed to them; I remember the Clinton years well enough.
Jon H
Whoever wrote this originally probably has a collection of tales about the times he single-handedly broke up Al Qaeda cells in his hometown.
Notorious P.A.T.
@Joe Beese:
Thank you.
Also, "we stand athwart history and yell ‘stop!’" is nothing to be proud of, either.
El Cid
Put me down on the list of those calling bullsh*t on the supposedly intellectual heritage of the U.S. conservative movement. It’s been a bunch of arrogantly ignorant nonsense for at least the last 30 years.
And this ‘story’ is the same sort of sh*t like Readers’ Digest would print all the time for mass numbers of Americans to read and giggle about why we weren’t socialist and all.
And then they’d have a cover story placed by Reagan hacks asking pf their Southern African hired slaughterer and objective ally of the South African fascists Jonas Savimbi "Can This Man Save Africa?"
There’s your conservative movement’s intellectual legacy right there. Readers’ Digest serving as hacks to spread Reaganite support for death squad thugs, combined with just these sorts of waiter jokes.
r€nato
bzzzzt sorry your response does not fit on a bumper sticker bzzzzzt does not compute
zoe from pittsburgh
Guess who else has been selling this absurd morality tale last week?
None other than Rush Limbaugh.
Let me explain. Since I’m self-employed I’m able to listen to the radio during the day. Because of the election I listen to a lot of right-wing radio (mostly Rush, some Glen Beck and Hannity if I’m feeling particularly masochistic) and then wait to see how many days his bullshit takes to get to the MSM or become a GOP talking point. On average it takes about a day or so. So when Nicole Wallace mentioned the arrogant-asshole-who-proudly-stiffs-his-waiter-so-he-can-mock-Obama-supporters story I was surprised that it took so long.
Clearly only someone who has never waited tables in his/her life would think this story is amusing.
I think it’s fascinating that the GOP likes to claim that dems engage in class warfare. Meanwhile the GOP likes to use working class people as props when it’s convenient– Joe the Plumber– buth other than that it’s all about the mockery.
Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s
The email I got had a prologue.
A robber noticed the guy handing the homeless person the $10 and assumed he was a rich liberal. So he held him up at gunpoint, shot him, and walked off with his wallet. The robber yelled back, as he was turning the corner, that the recent budget cuts caused by the Bush tax cuts had meant that the neighborhood he was in had no police officer on Thursdays and Mondays. See you next week, cheapskate.
r€nato
When I was a teenager, I worked a job bussing tables at a restaurant which tended to get a lot of snowbirds during the winter. Not infrequently, these douchebags would be very demanding and then leave a religious tract in place of a tip.
I’m pretty sure these fuckers were Republicans. I also hope they are all rotting in hell (there is no hell but it makes me feel good to imagine their torment).
encephalopath
The big "not real" give-away to me is the sign the homeless man is supposedly holding. "Vote for Obama, I need the money."
This is the wingnut version of why they think people would vote for Obama. They have no idea what the lives of poor people are like so this is all they can come up with.
Vote for Obama because my kids might get health insurance. Vote for Obama because they might get to go to college. Or if homeless, I might get housing then be able to get a job.
The truth is when many Republicans vote for a Republican, money really IS the reason they cast that vote. Republican rule is better for my investor class income bracket so I get more money.
Since money is what motivates them, they erroneously assume that’s what motivates everyone else too because they lack a real understanding of what people outside their circle are like.
r€nato
fuck. How do you do it? I couldn’t. I listened to that shit back in the late 80s/early 90s when I was fascinated with the phenomenon.
After a certain point I just couldn’t fucking do it any longer. I hate those fuckers passionately for what they have done to this country. They are not amusing; they are poisonous.
El Cid
Apparently the Google is your friend.
I don’t know why I bother to keep remembering the past, but here’s a summary of that outstanding conservative intellectual legacy from the hey days of the Reagan / Bush Sr. years, back before the bad wingnuts took them over.
I’ve known plenty of good honest, even intellectually motivated and principled conservatives. I never, ever saw that in the U.S. conservative movement though. Never.
r€nato
OMG Bill Kristol on TDS tonight.
No softball interviews this time, Jon. I beg of you.
zoe from pittsburgh
I first heard this story last week– on Rush Limbaugh. He thought is was just so clever, so HILARIOUS. Clearly the man has never spent a day working as a server in his life.
I’m self-employed so I can listen to radio during the day. I listen to a lot of Rush because of the election and because I like to see how many days it takes the bullshit he’s peddling to become GOP or McCain talking points.
So when I heard darling little Nicole Wallace try to sell the screw-poor-people-to-score-political-points story on NPR today I instantly thought of Rush.
What I find truly fascinating is how the GOP likes to accuse the dems of "class warfare" when they LOVE it– just as long as its about making fun of working class people or using people as props to score points to get poor people to vote for them. (ahem, joe the plumber)
Chuck Butcher
This little story reminds me of the OR state rep from my district telling a story about 10 people going to dinner and how 2 paid 30% of the ticket each, 2 paid 10% each and 4 paid 5% each and 2 paid nothing. So why would those 30% people ever want to got dinner again if 4 pay nothing and they pay more? The first answer is that none of those pay nothing are at the table, they’re on the floor licking up the crumbs that fall off…
So cute a story until…
He was House Ways & Means Chair until the Ds took over and he was a corporate and wealth tool. He also would have been reelected until hell froze over from one of the poorest districts in the state. Wayne Scott – asshole.
Brian J
Hey, you seem like the sort of guy who could appreciate an absurd story. Today at work, one of the guys who has joined in with my conservative friend made the ridiculous claim about Obama busing in people from Illinois to vote in the Nevada caucus. He said he had "proof" of this because Biden allegedly said hello to a group of Obama’s people from Illinois in Nevada, or something like that. Unless this was some sort understated joke, I was just shocked that someone would make such a dumb claim.
zoe from pittsburgh
I first heard this story last week– on Rush Limbaugh. He thought is was just so clever, so HILARIOUS. Clearly the man has never spent a day working as a waiter in his life.
I’m self-employed so I can listen to radio during the day. I listen to a lot of Rush because of the election and because I like to see how many days it takes the bullshit he’s peddling to become GOP or McCain talking points.
So when I heard darling little Nicole Wallace try to sell the screw-poor-people-to-score-political-points story on NPR today I instantly thought of Rush.
What I find truly fascinating is how the GOP likes to accuse the dems of "class warfare" when they LOVE it– just as long as its about making fun of working class people or using people as props to score points to get poor people to vote for them. (ahem, joe the plumber)
Batocchio
You know, as I was reading that e-mail, I thought, holy crap, that’s what I heard Nicole Wallace say on NPR as I was driving home… I’m glad you heard that segment, too. Good write-up. They all share the same bad talking points.
Original Lee
Fixt.
The bestest customers of this type are the ones who eat their Sunday dinners in a restaurant and then instead of leaving tips, leave Chick tracts berating the servers for working on the Sabbath.
Original Lee
Bother. The strikethrough worked just fine in preview.
jayhawk
beer criticism and mockery of republicans. god i love this blog.
r€nato
of course he would.
Because your typical Republican true-believer is a fucking dick.
Here’s a special Rush Limbaugh version of that story:
Rush Limbaugh went into a restaurant and was served by a waiter sporting an Obama ’08 tie. Rush ordered a triple cheeseburger with bacon and an extra large order of fries.
When the bill came Rush decided not to tip the server and explained to him that he was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. The waiter stood there in disbelief while Rush told him that he was going to redistribute his tip to someone whom he deemed more in need—the homeless guy outside.
At that very moment, Rush Limbaugh suffered a heart attack brought on by years of cigar smoking combined with no exercise and consuming a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet. His years of prescription drug abuse had also left his heart in a weakened condition.
In between gasps of breath, Rush begged the waiter to call 911. The waiter replied, ‘why do you expect the government to do everything for you, you socialist bastard?’
Then Rush pleaded with the diners for someone to administer CPR. The diners in unison yelled at him, ‘pick yourself up by your own bootstraps, asshole!’
Then Rush died. The diners picked up his corpse and fed it into a wood chipper. A parade was held in celebration, a national day of thanksgiving was declared and everyone got the day off.
The end.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
This Sam Adams crap was the hefeweizen equivalent of having sex while wearing eight condoms.
That ain’t so bad, if you’re creative about where you wear the condoms.
El Cid
God bless the Daily Show for just standing up for ACORN and sticking it to the typical reprehensible ugly right wing ‘think tank’ fat f*** they’re interviewing who literally says that "community organizing" leads frequently to crack cocaine dealing.
Nylund
Am I the only one that noticed that a $10 tip means your lunch bill came to $50 – $100 (allowing for the tip to be 10-20%)? That, my friends, is a pretty expensive lunch and since we’re talking about wingnuts, we know 10% is more accurate (not so much the giving type).
But, more importantly, here are other questionable assumptions that would make this a good parable.
1. Waiters represent the richest people in America. The kind who would pay high tax rates that would then get their taxes redistributed. Not people who buy $100 lunches.
2. The tax rate will be 100% under Obama. Every last cent of your income will get taken away.
A closer analogy to the real world would be if the waiter told the person ordering the $100 lunch that $10 of his lunch fund actually went towards buying food for a homeless man outside who was starving. To that, I’d think most people would be like, "wow, an expensive restaurant like this using their profits to help feed the needy? That’s pretty cool."
r€nato
OMG Bill Kristol is a dick. Fuck that smarmy POS.
matt
I would like to try playing this game.
The other day, I saw a homeless guy with a sign that said "Vote Obama, so I can pay for a kidney transplant." I laughed heartily and went on my way. Later I met a gay black Muslim Obama supporter . . .
aw fuck I give up. This is making me stupid.
jcricket
What’s funny is that I’m perilously close to the class of people that will see their taxes go up under Obama, and I couldn’t be happier.
1) Because I recognize I am extraordinarily fortunate and can afford what others cannot.
2) Because I recognize that in the medium and long-term things that increase the number of middle class people and reduce poverty benefit my investments through increased actual spending.
I get people being selfish enough not to side with me on #1. Anyone who doesn’t understand #2 is a short-sighted idiot.
I will also add #3, that my increased tax burden might actually be a net positive if I could get Medicare for cheaper than my increasingly expensive and ever-shittier healthcare coverage (and I work for a great company).
r€nato
Great post Nylund. Indeed, a more accurate version of this ‘story’ would be, the diner said he was going to give 50 cents of the waiter’s tip to the homeless dude. The waiter said, ‘hey that’s cool; here, give him a couple extra bucks.’ The waiter handed him two dollars out of the tip.
The Republican walked right past the homeless dude and didn’t give him a dime of the money he was supposed to give to him. "Suckers!" he thought to himself.
jcricket
Yes, I heard this to be true. All of Obama’s mild increases in tax rates on the richest 1-5% can be characterized as a 100% redistribution of their wealth to undeserving lazy ass black folk.
jcricket
I think the most accurate version of this story is "I wasn’t going to tip you, and I hate homeless people, so I told the waiter to ‘go to school’ and the homeless person to ‘get a job’ and went back to being a conservative tool".
lisa
So, you didn’t like the beer?
Just Some Fuckhead
Fixed.
r€nato
that’s funny; I thought that if someone offers you a condom, they want to have sex with you.
Comrade Kevin
@r€nato:
That was a work of art.
Cris v.3.1
I just want to know why I can’t find Sam Adams Cream Stout any longer. It was the brew that turned me on to the label, and nothing else they sell compares.
Country first.
Comrade Kevin
I’m trying to think of an American Hefeweizen that’s actually good, and can’t come up with anything.
Shygetz
If more conservatives read Adam Smith than Ayn Rand, there might be a movement worth saving. As it is, people worship free market capitalism without realizing its limitations and a mythical "rugged individualism" while shopping at the local Wal-Mart.
Vico
Your Update really nailed the Sam Adama swill. It’s amusing to travel back East and run into people who think they’re drinking good beer when they have a Sam Adams.
I invite you to the Pacific Northwest, where you can quaff Widmer Bros. or Pyramid Hefeweizen from the tap to your heart’s content, and, no doubt, benefit. Just remember to tip the server.
handy
Count me as one calling BS on this story. For just this reason alone:
The server angrily stormed from my sight. Not saying it couldn’t happen–I’ve dealt some immature, rude servers in my time, most of us have.
But honestly that is such a convenient turn in the story to drive the point. It just feels contrived. Wouldn’t it have been more likely that the server smiled and said, "OK sir." Perhaps he may indulged in a little rolling of the eyes, but nothing beyond that.
It is just so reminiscent of all the other fantasies these wingers write on the Net or say on call-in shows, about how they totally get over on the harpy leftists with their awesomeness.
r€nato
of course it never happened, handy. These are the same folks who fancy themselves armchair generals but are loathe to actually sign up to fight.
ppcli
Rush screwed up the joke. Actually, the waiter has a McCain 08 tie, and the customer says "Since you want more of what we’ve gotten for the past 8 years, I’m just going to mail this $10 directly to AIG." 4 more years of the same bungling incompetence didn’t seem so attractive to him then. I didn’t mention to him that I had also been monitoring his phone calls without his knowledge.
.
Much funnier in its correct version.
Martin
Well, I’m done as of this morning. McCain connecting Obama’s civil rights comments with the wealth distribution bullshit in a not-at-all subtle suggestion that Obama is going to take money from white people and give it to black people.
McCain can DIAF. My ability to be entertained by this shit is gone. If there is any justice in the world, Obama will win Arizona.
kommrade jakevich
Bad ideas: The STD of the Republican Party.
What a difference a technological breakthrough can make. Now one jackass can squirt a turd into the Internons after breakfast and his fellow jackasses the world over will be munching on it before the first coffee break.
The problem is 1. Anyone can see the turd, even people who think it stinks. 2. When the turd is particularly toxic (Ashley Todd and the bitch who sent out the Obama food stamp flier spring to mind), there’s no way to hide it from the general public.
Maybe that’s their problem. They don’t understand that other people use the internons.
Comrade Kevin
@Vico:
Pyramid’s not bad, I almost mentioned that; they have a brewery here in the Bay Area as well.
Stuff from the Northwest I like is Rogue, but it’s kind of expensive. Visited their original place in Newport once, an interesting experience.
Allan
I got this crap from a relative too.
My response:
Nice story. I guess you identified with the asshole narrator who laughed at a homeless man then stiffed an underpaid service worker.
But you appear to be ignorant about how redistribution of wealth works.
If the narrator had acted properly, he would have approached the OWNER of the restaurant at the end of his meal and informed him that he was going to short-pay his check by twenty dollars.
He would then give ten dollars above the usual tip to the server to compensate for the fact that the restaurant doesn’t offer him health insurance.
Then he would give the other ten dollars to the homeless man so he could go into the restaurant and buy something to eat.
The restaurant would get its money back because the server will stay healthy and productive, and the homeless man can now afford to spend money there.
James Gary
The only reason to drink Sam Adams anything is if one is in an "Outback Steakhouse" or similar chain restaurant and everything else available on tap is pasteurized domestic watery water.
Also, that story about the waiter vs. the homeless man makes absolutely no God-damned sense whatsoever, other than to suggest that rich people are generally obnoxious pricks–a fact that most of us in the under-$250,000 bracket know quite well.
handy
Yeah, but the analogy here has them offering you eight. Which is a big difference, because like, first of all I’m thinking, "Hello! I shower, thank you!"
Second, and more to the point, if you’re wearing eight condoms, what’s the point? It’s probably like jerking off to porn with both hands tied behind your back.
Shaggy
Tonight, in honor of the fiscally-minded douche restaurant-goer, I will be watching Eat the Rich.
Sapper
If that story is real, I hope the next time that guy orders a ham sandwich it tastes like taint.
The "parable" I keep hearing that makes me want to punch a baby and pull out my teeth is the one about a father his and his liberal college daughter. She’s a hard working student and the father asks how she feels if he would take her 4.0 reduce it to a 2.0 and then "redistribute" the remaining 2.0 to her party-hard-and-never-study friend.
The stupid… it burns.
handy
She’s a hard working student and the father asks how she feels if he would take her 4.0 reduce it to a 2.0 and then "redistribute" the remaining 2.0 to her party-hard-and-never-study friend.
Wait, that couldn’t happen?
LiberalTarian
renato beat me to it, but there is so much wrong in this sentence it could be done twice.
wrong.
lots and lots of wrong.
ninerdave
Sam Adams is shit. I was in Boston recently, and that was all I could find that wasn’t Bud. I thought Sam Adams, being one of the first "micros" to go nationwide, Boston would have a great selection of local beers. If they did, they hid it well.
Oh while I was there I had a bottle of ass called Blue Moon. Mistakenly I thought this was a local. No, it’s made by Coors, which explains it all.
John Cole
No, the most offensive part of the god damned story, which is stupid and offensive from top to bottom, is that it betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the human condition and a lack of understanding where most of us came from. A shitload of us average Americans worked as waiters and waitresses before we had other jobs. I worked in fast food, and then worked as a busboy at Allyn’s Restaurant in Millbrook, NY, then had a number of jobs as a waiter and then a doorman in bars and restaurants all over the place before I got a job where I could live on something other than tips. The fact of the matter is that people like me always fucking over-tip, because we know how god damned broke wait staff are. People I know routinely make fun of me for tipping too much – I, at the very minimum, give 20% for dinner, and if it is good service, 30%, even counting drinks, because I know how fucking broke these people are.
I would never in my wildest fucking dreams stiff the waiter to give money to someone outside. The money I gave to the person outside, were that the case, would be just something else, and be totally unrelated.
Folks who live in this fantasy world are cretinous scum who would never have anything to do with the homeless people outside. The story is bullshit upon bullshit, and the fact that it betrays a lack of understanding how people who works for tips live is just the fucking icing on the god damned cake.
I can not believe I was ever a fucking Republican.
burnspbesq
@Allan:
Exactly.
Steve LaBonne
If you want a good Hefe go for the real Munich deal- I particularly like Paulaner.
burnspbesq
@John Cole:
You didn’t desert the Republican Party; it deserted you.
Jess
@Just Some Fuckhead:
FTW
r€nato
That reminds me of the story about the conservative father and his daughter. Her daughter worked hard to keep a 4.0 average. However, the father HATED paying the property taxes which helped fund the college, so he and his neighbors got together and elected politicians who promised to abolish all property taxes, on the theory that property taxes were unfair because they mean that you will never truly own your property.
When the politicians did as the father and his friends asked, the college had to raise tuition by 1,000% and quit offering the low in-state tuition to state residents like the conservative father.
This made the father angry at incompetent government bureaucrats, who were surely at fault for this state of affairs. So the father and his right-wing friends continued voting for politicians who promised to abolish every tax they could.
Pretty soon all government services were operating on a shoestring, and one night the father’s daughter was raped while walking home from a late-night study session at the library because the police could not afford to have a cop patrol the area on weeknights.
When the father took the daughter to the police station to report the crime, he was told they would be happy to file a report but first they would need his credit card so that they could charge him $800 for the rape kit. When the father demanded to know whose idiotic idea that was, he was told it was due to the budget cuts instituted by President Palin so that the government could afford to pay for the Wall Street bailout and the war with Iran.
The end.
burnspbesq
And can we once and for all agree that "conservative" and "Republican" are not synonyms?
The average Republican thinks that Edmund Burke was played by Gene Barry in a 1960s TV series, and that an Oakeshott is two ounces of Jack Daniels in a wooden cup. Republicans are statist, nativist, theocratic crony capitalists.
Republicans are lying, hypocritical, sanctimonious, tone deaf, non-self-aware scumbags.
If the last piece of meat on earth was a dead Republican, I would become a vegan.
John Cole
I really said fuck a lot in that last comment. I guess after a bottle of wine and two shitty beers, I get a potty mouth.
Sasha
The modern GOP: Where shameless dickishness is a core virtue.
handy
Just stay away from that phone. The drunk call to the ex is always a bad idea.
Johnny Pez
And the moral of the story is, all taxes are bad, and should be abolished.
Jess
I hear ya–I moved here from the West Coast recently and am going through major micro-brewery withdrawal. Wachusett Pale Ale isn’t bad, but I’m still ordering Sierra Nevada and Anchor Steam whenever I can.
I love your drunken rants, John–they’re especially great after I’ve had a few too many as well. Cheers!
r€nato
John, much of Republican philosophy these days is about rationalizing greed and extreme selfishness.
The fact that these sad bastards think this is a clever story and one worth repeating to others, illustrates not only what gaping assholes they are but also their utter obliviousness to that fact. I mean, it’s like bragging about stealing candy from a baby. You’re an asshole for doing it, and you’re an irredeemable asshole for bragging about it.
jcricket
If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.
Seriously John, if I had been hoodwinked into voting Republican for 10-20 years I’d be pretty pissed off too. I think it’s funny, but trivial bullshit like this lays bare the base instincts of the Republican party.
Not only is it bullshit understand of policy, but it shows that what’s funny to Republicans is fucking other people over to make a point. Yes, that would be HI-larious!
When income inequality is at the highest point since right before the Great Depression, America’s standing in the world is at an all-time low, Americans are facing bankruptcy due to healthcare costs, and the wingers are bleating about Ayers, Wright, Rashidi, socialism, booga-booga-black-man-gonna-get-yer-wife.
Yeah, I’d say fuck a few times too.
TheHatOnMyCat
Yep. Fast food, pizza, fry cook in large coffee shops, all through college and after.
Today, I tip the hell out of everybody in food service. Twenty percent is just about my minimum. All you have to do for twenty percent is get the order to me the same day.
For real service I go considerably higher.
I also give lots of money to homeless people. And I don’t get that money by taking it away from service personnel.
I’m just a generous person. I like being generous, it lowers my blood pressure.
Jess
I think that’s what the blog site is here to prevent–we’re all John’s exes now!
Brian J
Eh, I like Blue Moon. Then again, I’m partial to any sort of bear that has a fruit taste or is paired well with a piece of fruit, probably more than I like anything other type of beer. Of course, some of the Sam Adams specialty beers could give them a run for their money.
I don’t mean to make this sound like a dickheaded question, but what in your mind is a good beer? I think it’s more a matter of preference than anything else. I wouldn’t say Guinness is bad, even though I don’t like it because I don’t like beers that dark.
LiberalTarian
North Coast Brewing Country out of Fort Bragg is great, too.
Red Seal, Rasputin, Scrimshaw … ah, how I love beer.
If only it loved me back. Sigh.
Yeah, I hate it when that happens.
r€nato
Steve Buscemi, channeling today’s Republican in Reservoir Dogs:
Joshua Norton
I just heard an ad for Yes on 8 that said gays were discriminating against people who wanted to keep marriage "sacred". Fight discrimination – vote YES on 8.
So it’s discrimination to tell them they can’t discriminate. Wow. Their victimization has no lower limits. The Mormons are putting this thing on the same shrill shriek level as Armageddon.
All’s I can say is it’s a fee-fie-foe-fuckin’ shame that they’re so upset.
Larry Craig nee Crusty Dem
John, you’ve nailed it (in your comment), besides, Obama wouldn’t take a penny from the waiter, he’d get a tax cut, too; but then I suppose the allegory would fail at making their point if you replaced the waiter with a stockbroker, banker, or hedge fund manager.
Sherrell
@Joe Beese:
This is my problem with the modern day conservative movement, that in the beginning it was based in anti-civil rights ideals and it continues to this day. In some cases I agree with the idea of a small government and individual responsibility. Take gay marriage for instance, shouldn’t the conservative stance on a federal ban on gay marriage be against it rather than for it?
skippy
i went the a restaurant today, and on the way i saw a homeless man w/a sign that said "vote mccain, i need the opportunity."
at the restaurant i saw that my waiter had a "mccain 08" tie. so after i ate my meal, i thought i’d try an experiment.
i said to my waiter, "i’m not going to give you a tip. instead i’m going to give wall street a 700 billion dollar bail out that you and your children and your children’s children will be paying for for the next 50 years."
boy was he mad.
r€nato
this one has been around for a while but I think it bears repeating in light of the post’s topic:
———————————–
Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of 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 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 of its contents because some 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 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 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 liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his 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 FDIC 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 life-time.
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 dad’s house; 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 electricity until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republicans would still be sitting in the dark)
He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His 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 he gets back in his car for the ride home.
He turns on a radio talk show, the hosts 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”.
dan b
I don’t think I need to tell that that young waiter was a young John McCain.
And now you know the rest of the story. Good day?
ninerdave
@Brian J:
Well LiberalTarian below your posts names a couple of good breweries.
I love Racer 5 from Bear Republic, anything from Stone Brewery, especially their porter and Russian stout. Had one called Leafer Madness from Beer Valley that was a hop head’s dream (me). I’ll even admit I like Pabst.
I don’t generally like wheat/white beers, which Blue Moon is. However, for a white beer it had more orange taste than beer taste. My impression was that it was an orange glass of foam.
I’m also the type of a beer snob, that doesn’t like fruit and spices in my beer. Malt, water, yeast and barley. Done.
If you like Blue Moon, head to your local BevMo, and head to the Belgium section spin around and just start randomly grabbing. You’ll really enjoy.
Pennypacker
I’m sorry, John, I think Sam Adams is generally the Starbucks of the crafted beer world.
And for that matter, Starbucks is the McDonalds of the gourmet coffee world.
Drink some west-coast beers, dude. This is where the micro-brew revolution started.
r€nato
I guess unregulated free markets are an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
Sasha
BTW, this anecdote was listed as "Breaking News" on Conservapedia.
Mnemosyne
I announced to my husband tonight that I am planning to sue the McCain campaign for letting Nicole Mitchell tell this "story" on NPR, thus causing me severe brain damage as I tried to figure out (a) what the point was and (b) in what universe it was happening, because it sure didn’t bear any resemblance to the United States in 2008.
Thoughtcrime
@r€nato:
Same as it ever was:
"The modern Conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy — that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." ~John Kenneth Galbraith
And don’t forget this as we continue to "bail out" our Wall Street overlords:
"The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery." ~Upton Sinclair
Something to think about as more and more of your future earnings go to pay off this fiasco.
Lesley
This is what you could call a wingnut urban myth, generated for and by wingnuts.
As you say, they are intellectually bankrupt. This "story" also conveys their inner cheapskate, their meanness. To these folks, a homeless guy and a waiter are like hamsters in a cage you toy with for your own amusement before you feed them to your boa constrictor.
I can see them handling Katrina exactly the way Bush did.
I imagine this is what a bunch of sociopaths would type if they formed a political party and shared "stories" of their little experiments with humans.
I can’t wait for November 4th. They won’t know what hit them.
ninerdave
@Pennypacker:
Fuck ya!
(is that too many fucks in a post?)
Jennifer
How come whenever Republicans are promising tax cuts (lying to everyone but the super-rich about the fact that they will get one too), it’s always "it’s YOUR MONEY", but as soon as a Democrat talks about a tax cut for everyone but the super-rich, it’s "SOCIALISM!!!OOGA-BOOGA!!!"
What, rich people are the only ones who actually own their money? Only rich people know how to spend "their money" better than the government? What?
This has been driving me nuts, that no one has thrown this in their faces. There’s plenty of video floating around out there with Republicans talking about taxes being "YOUR money". Except now, it’s not. I guess it’s only "YOUR money" when they’re the ones promising to give it back to you (even though they’re lying).
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMVIII
These people like nothing better than to hurt others who don’t see things the way they do. They are hatemongers.
We say "spread the wealth", they say "spread the hate".
Lesley
By the way, this, if you haven’t already seen it.
Apologies if it’s been noted. I haven’t read through all the posts today.
mike
Always preferred Widmer Hefeweisen over Pyramid myself.
If you havent lived on the west coast, you probably dont really know what good american beer is, or just how many good varieties and breweries are out there. Id like to give St. Louis and Milwaukee a few hard kicks to the nuts for what they made people think is "american" beer.
Brian J
Just curious, what are your thoughts on Miller’s Chill, the chelada style beer?
ninerdave
@Lesley:
You know when I first read John’s post, before the updates, I really felt sad for whomever the person was that felt the need to do such a thing. Basically, "let’s fuck this Obama fanboi so I can make a point" was what it screamed to me. However, the more I read this thread and the updates, I’m calling bullshit. I agree this is a made up story to create a wingnut "hero". An urban myth.
Why? Well wingnuts are generally pussies. They type a good story about the lives they wish they had the balls to lead. Also, wingnuts, or more precisely the two that I’m acquainted with don’t tip, or if they have to it’s change. Even though they are scraping by just like anyone else, they have the air that they are above it and this "servant" is there to meet their needs. Again…the last point is my personal experience, the part about them being pussies, is well, really well documented.
I think this is a 2008 version of the Caddy Welfare Mom.
El Cid
From the ancient days of 2002 via our friends the National Review:
Yeah man, we’ve really lost so much of that awesome conservative political intellectual heritage.
JackieBinAZ
You can’t be talking about the Summer Ale which I thought was the best weizen i’d had since leaving what was then West Germany. My only complaint was that it lacked a wienerschnitzel with that curry ketchup that got you pegged as an American soldier if you asked for it.
ninerdave
Oh and since this is still a bit of a beer thread. I’ll pimp my buddy’s blog:
Beer Obsessed
mike
Basicly a beer that you like the taste of, and has a full and rich pallete of flavors. Most mass produced lagers are basicly pisswater, they are designed to have as bland and neutral a "taste" and texture as possible.
Once you start down the road of trying different beer varieties and brewers, you really get to appreciate the difference.
ResumeMan
So not to be pedantic, but Hefeweizen’s aren’t actually compliant with the Reinheitsgebot. That actually specified that beer could be made only with water, hops and barley malt (and yeast, but when it was written brewers didn’t actually know about yeast). Since hefe’s include about 50% wheat in the grain bill, they don’t meet those standards.
That said, the rheinheitsgebot was an archaic law meant to keep brewers from putting scary shit in their beer, not anything to do with actual quality beer. So it’s not like it would guarantee good beer. Good beer is made with all kinds of non-barley and non-hops stuff.
I don’t think I’ve ever bothered trying the Sam hefe, but really I’ve never had an American version I’ve cared for. Weak sauce, all of ’em.
Lesley
@ninerdave: If the waiter had been wearing a McCain button would the wingnut have deprived him of his tip? I’m thinking not. This story has two messages: screw anyone who prefers Obama and do it in such a way to illustrate some lesson in economics you think they’ll get in the process of your screwing them. Uh, no.
But yeah, I’m thinking this anecdote was invented to illustrate collective neoconservative scorn for social and fiscal policy that is compassionate.
And if it actually happened, it was one wingnut’s way of getting revenge on a fellow citizen who happens to prefer "that guy."
The spirit of democracy at work, if you will.
Republicans (neoconservatives, to be precise) are going down. They can blame Obama all they want but they’ve brought this squarely on themselves. When the election is over, they’ll either have to embrace the choice of the majority or declare the majority of voters the enemy. I don’t think they’ll want to go there.
Manish
The OBAMA campaign DOESN’T SELL TIES.
Johnny Pez
You know this story isn’t true, because conservatives don’t leave tips, they leave those fundy tracts that look like dollar bills on the outside
AnneLaurie
Yea verily. It’s the PG version of those Penthouse Forum letters — they’re not meant to convert the ‘heathens’ (who aren’t listening), just to establish the writer’s own membership in the Kewl Kids Klub. And these mooks are so lame, they’re going to take the $10 they’re pretending they’d use as a tip to buy an official embossed ‘Kewl Kids Klub’ pinback from the McCain/Palin online store.
Kat
dmsilev said: Amusingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, that exact same "joke" appeared word for word in a Letter to the Editor in this morning’s Chicago Tribune.
I remember a news article about 6 months ago that talked about these fake letters to editor. I immediately dashed off an email to 4 of the top honchos at my city’s major newspaper, telling them if I found one of these fake GOP letters to the editor in any of my morning papers, they’d be getting a cancellation notice from me.
If I wrote a version of this fake letter, the waiter would have replied, ‘Don’t you own the auto repair shop down the street? I was hoping to bring my car in for a much-needed tune-up this week, but the way things are going, it’ll take me another six months to save up enough money.’
D-Chance.
Ah, so that’s the genesis of the whole waitress/homeless guy tale of redistribution. Talking points… figures.
Nemoudeis
Hey, did anybody else notice that this guy was apparently eating his dinner alone? Either that, or we are forced to believe that he was sharing a meal with such an incredible collection of jackasses that not one of them chose to take him aside and remind him about how patronizingly lame and manipulative his particular exercise was.
It’s also been my experience that when the characters in parables such as these behave in the manner perfectly predicted by the storyteller (i.e. "The server angrily stormed from my sight" at being told his tip was going to the homeless person), that that’s an obvious clue as to the fabulousness of the tale.
And I’m not a particular fan of Hefeweizens (nor Sam Adams, for that matter); but if you can find one of Summit Brewery’s Hefeweizens out there where you live, I suggest you try it. Or better yet — grab a hold of one of their Porters. That’s more of a fall-winter brew, anyway.
Jake Nelson
Random factoid I’m reminded of:
The Boston Beer Company is now the largest US-owned brewery.
The #2 vs #3 is an interesting compare and contrast:
Yuengling is #2- privately owned by Dick Yuengling, 2000 RNC delegate for Bush; union-buster; general douchebag.
Sierra Nevada is #3- environmentalists; studying beer byproducts as energy sources; give piles of money to women’s clinics.
bellatrys
The only thing new is the instant email distribution. When I was a young wingnut in the ’70s and ’80s, the fave astroturf type story was the one about the young woman whose car broke down on the side of the road, and she stood there and stood there and nobody stopped to help her!
All the cars just kept on zipping by – until she had a brainstorm, and digging around in her back seat she found a big piece of cardboard and a magic marker. She made a sign and held it up, and within minutes a man had pulled over to help her.
The sign read, I AM NOT A FEMINIST.
[cue audience laughter, applause]
See, ladies, this proves that feminism is bad for women!
There were others, but this was the one that came up most frequently in our Buckley-Viguerie-Weyrich-Buchanan-Keyes-associate circles (Yes, I am one Bacon-degree from all of them.)
Well, except for the one-liner, "A conservative is a liberal who got mugged," of course.
gaucho
As a humble soul residing in (damn-near) paradise, (AKA Santa Barbara) I must say the one great aspect of this blog is its interest in beer. Personally, I am currently experimenting with the Sam Adams "Winter Lager." Not bad, not great. The one thing that gets to me though is how "SA" makes a "summer ale" and then a "winter lager." Perhaps I’m just old-fashioned for my age, but my general rule of thumb is that as the nights get longer, the beers get darker. I doubt Ol’ Sam would be brewing lager right now.
Additionally, on the whole hefeweizen dispute, once you go German, you don’t go back. I’m on the west coast, and the only one that comes close to having any flavor is Widmer. Everything else is just wheat and water and pretentious fucks trying to sound like they know beer. That is all.
Jamey the plumber -- an American hero
Let me get this straight:
Conservative diner doesn’t like waitperson’s politics and decides to punish that waitperson’s politics by withholding payment, irrespective of the quality of service.
That’s not socialism, that’s Stalinism.
DecidedFenceSitter
@jcricket:
Amen, jckicket, While my household is no where’s near the 250K level, it is possible we might be in the "better off with McCain plan than Obama’s plan" categories, I’m trying to remember exactly where the cut-offs are.
And I have a friend, without health insurance, working two jobs trying to argue that McCain’s plan is best, and I at one point in the discussion looked at her and said, "Dude, I’m the one who could be funding your health, and your economic well-being, and I’m okay with that."
Xenos
Yeah, but he is not OK with that. Pride, you know, goeth before accepting charitable system that would help one’s neighbors as well as ones self, free business from an anticompetitive burdens and greatly reduce the stress and misery of daily life that incidentally enriches a select few businesses that profit mightily from denying contracted-for benefits from their customers…
Something like that.
Rick Taylor
I also wasn’t expecting McCain to engage publicly in demagogic and arguably racist attacks against private organizations and citizens. I didn’t expect much from him, but this has been despicable. We’ve already talked about Acorn, now he’s calling someone a neo-nazi. Despite the warnings of how ugly the campaign would get, I didn’t think it would get this low.
Juan Cole has more. The oh so honorable John McCain is trying to bring back McCarthyism.
Xenos
And isn’t complaining about a hefeweizen in late October like complaining about getting all the mud and snow on your white shoes?
Rick Taylor
To be fair, it looks like it would be more accurate, to say they compared attending Rashid’s event to meeting with a group of neo-Nazis. It’s still loathsome. Palin also called Rashid a spokesman for the PLO, which is a lie.
Original Lee
Re: pretty good East Coast beers: Old Dominion anything.
Also Gennessee 12-Horse Ale.
Sadly, I can’t drink beer until I can stop taking my allergy meds (usually in December), so I’m working from memory here.
kommrade jakevich
Heh. Another brilliant demonstration of how hard the McFlailin campaign can stomp on its own dick:
No one could have possibly foreseen that if you run around screaming that everyone who hangs around with X is a terrorist, then everyone who hangs around with X is likely to tell you to shut the fuck up and leave you looking like an utter schmuck.
Now the Palindrones will either have to ignore this person, or claim he is not a RealJew(R). McPOW will want to go with the former but the rouge pitbull moose-stepping maverickess is likely to go full steam ahead with the latter. If we’re really lucky she’ll throw in some passages from Revelation.
More popcorn, or shall we switch to nachos & cheese?
John S.
@RickTaylor:
McCain and Palin don’t know anything about Khalidi and neither do their supporters. All they know is that he is a Muslim professor from Chicago with a funny name which fits perfectly into their anti-intellectual, anti-liberal, anti-Arab "Chicago is a den of Jew-hating scoundrels with ties to terrorists" narrative.
Facts and truth are entirely irrelevant.
lou
This story is obviously made up. The homeless guy stands in for all the poor people the conservatives believe are mooching off the government. The waiter stands in for all the effete liberals.
nevsky42
I guess the story is some grand point about the redistribution of wealth, but all I saw was some douchebag unwilling to pay his fair share for services rendered.
Pretty much the wingnut philosophy in a nutshell…
Xanthippas
The modern Republican Party: the party of chain emails.
burnspbesq
@Rick Taylor:
I love Scott Horton’s comment on the whole Khalidi fiasco. He says that if McCarthy bothers to dig a little deeper into the whole Hyde Park/U of C network, he will find evidence of long-standing ties between Obama and a really scary dude — Judge Posner.
mikr
perfect name for a new Republican microbrew: Wingnut B Lager
cleek
i wouldn’t go that far.
Blue Moon is anemic compared to most Belgian whites. if you like BM, there’s a good chance a typical Belgian white will seem too bitter/strong/unfiltered/etc..
like, it’s like saying liking Taco Bell means you’ll like actual Mexican food from Mexico. like. also. youbetcha.
gil mann
I don’t know why everyone finds this story so hard to believe. I spent ten years in the service industry, and I can say with some authority that waiters love to promote political messages that alienate half of their customers. They’re there to make a point, no to maximize their earning potential.
I AM JOE THE WAITER
Doctor Science
My plans for Tuesday evening involve getting back from an *extremely* long day as a pollworker and having Young’s Double Chocolate Stout (two great tastes, etc.). If anyone knows of an American equivalent, that would be even more appropriate — there’s a store near me that sells more than 600 kinds of beer, so I can get pretty exotic. I like ’em smooooth and so thick that a spoon might stand up in it.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Notorious P.A.T.:
OTOH, anyone who says:
can’t be all bad,
Jack H.
In the real world this ‘joke’ would involve a CEO losing $1,000,000 off his $33,000,000 bonus and and 1000 lower level employees getting $1,000 each.
HeavyJ
"This was once a proud movement."
It’s been a stinking turd since Lincoln was shot.
Dennis - SGMM
WaPo has an editorial on the McCain campaign’s vilifying Khalidi. It’s titled An Idiot Wind.
El Cid
@HeavyJ: Actually, the forgotten stage of American history — the post-Civil War South — saw African Americans with remarkable degree of political success in running as Republicans, often in collaboration with their white Populist Party allies. Unfortunately the forces of right wing violence, actual coup d’etat, terrorism, and white supremacism destroyed that huge advance, and it took another 60 or so years for liberals to overthrow the conservative consensus on repression and violence.
Jane Doe
I grew up with preppies and intellectuals and became a Christian at 19. Middle class, blue colar and poor people have a right to exist…which the other two groups don’t believe. I did not want to sleep with a bunch of bums before I got married, I was a traditional gal who wanted to stay home (could give a crap about a blowhard career) and believe much of what happened in the 1960’s has or is effectively causing the demise of the other three social classes. I come from people both in the preppies and intellectuals that are well known, and if I had found their lifestyles so wonderful or loving (especially the intellectuals) I would never have turned my life over to Christ. I know the preppies are anxious to abort out the other three "lower" classes, so they don’t have to pay taxes, especially since they shipped all of these peoples jobs overseas! The intellectual feminist crowd is particularly unloving and pernicious as it thinks it only has the right ideas and has no love for anyone from handicapped to preppie. I could go on and on, how the handicapped are wonderful people, how we actually had families in the 1960’s, how I am glad that I never got married or had children in this environment, how my friend’s daughter who is a Stanford and Harvard just got mugged because she would rather be alone than sleeping with a bunch of bums…We today can technologically eliminate anyone who is handicapped or inferior (Hitler) and snoop on anyone and destroy their lives with background checking (like Stalin). I am liberal for the minorities and conservative for morality and I think the top "sucks". Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russian and Communist China were all educated societies – that does not mean that they were humane. You can be educated and mature and still be horrible! I am ashamed to be an American, and feel sorry for all of the blue collar and inner city kids serving the military (what would you call them – dolts, nuts). I think this society is trully turning into Hitler and Stalin technologically….signed, one who comes from the top.
El Cid
By the way, you gotta love how our U.S. political consensus of discussion on Israel / Palestine is so toxically tilted in favor of hawk militarism with regard to the Israeli occupation that even those defending Khalidi have to dance around saying, ‘well, of course we don’t agree with everything Pr. Khalidi has argued.’
It doesn’t matter how far right or militarist or anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian nutball you are, if you’re advocating for Israeli right wing policies, then you’re OK in U.S. politics. You can ‘pal around’ with politicians, get on the T.V., and no one has to run around denying they ever got your cooties.
If on the other hand, you break from that consensus, then ‘OMG we might respect you but you have to live in a plastic bubble.’
Jane Doe
I fogot the word "graduate" after Stanford and Harvard.
kay
I was a waitress when Reagan came to power.
One of my most vivid memories of that period is when Reagan instituted tough new rules governing the taxing of tipped employees.
Restaurants had to comply. Reagan’s name was always mentioned in the complaints about the new "tax deadbeat waitresses" initiative.
I remember being so angry that Ronald Reagan thought Job One was tightening up income reporting requirements on people making 10,000 a year.
That’s where he turned for increased tax revenue. My tips at IHOP.
Comrade Darkness
I’ll put in a good word for Otter Creek Octoberfest. I deglazed a pan with it while making potato, leek, andouille soup because I didn’t have an open white wine, and it really worked out nicely. And the rest of the bottle didn’t stay around long. As a person who does not like sweet, it has a refreshingly authentic München sweetness, which american brewers rarely pull off properly.
Jane Doe
Forgot – sorry this happens when the family is all Ivy graduates – cannot spell!
Larry Randolph
I need a bit of clarification here….. If you put lipstick on a pitbull is that what some now think of as Doggie Style?
I am looking to sell blue t-shirts that explain why I voted Blue anyone need a
"Sarah, Blue Me!" shirt?
charlotte
Ah and so the legend of Cristian, The Waiter, is born. Waitperson, I guess, in our new idiot parlance.
I will take a Bud over any Sam Adams product any day of the week.
comrade thalarctos
In Boston, only the tourists drink Sammy. Much more likely to find the locals drinking Harpoon.
Which reminds me of a story–twenty or so years ago, I was involved with running a grad student pub. A salesman from the Boston Beer Company came to a meeting, flogging their latest brew, a light beer (this was the ’80s) called–I kid you not–"Lightship".
After tasting it, we called it something else.
jimmiraybob
My return reply to that email……
On my way to lunch recently, I passed a business guy in an Explorer 9000 with a bumper sticker that read “Vote McCain; leave my money alone.” I laughed a gallows laugh at the quaint thought of something as archaic as elections. In the restaurant my server had on a “McCain” tie. When I asked, the waiter told me that his boss made all the employees wear McCain ties and buttons. There’d been a lot of excitement among the conservatives and Republicans when McCain and Palin pulled off their stunning upset.
While waiting for the appetizer I asked the waiter what had happened to the homeless guys that usually hung out near the restaurant – the homeless vets, many of them missing limbs. He said that they’d been rounded up and sent to the Christian re-education camps that Alaska was now running – apparently with rather rich federal contracts, but that was just a rumor since the government news company (now on 364 channels) never mentioned it. Too bad I thought.
After finishing my bowl of soup and water (couldn’t afford the crackers), the bill for $15 came. I only had a twenty so I gave it to the waiter and while waiting for the change calculated the tip. Despite the McCain tie, the waiter had provided very good service and a good deal of humor so I decided to give him 20% and a little more – I hoped the $3 would somehow help him buy the gallon of milk that he needed for the family that week. That would leave me the $2 that I’d need to pay the sidewalk user fees on my way to class and then home. Everything was user fees since taxes were outlawed back in 2010, when the new wars – the big ones – began.
After waiting a bit longer than I thought was needed I asked the waiter if he could bring me the change so that I could be on my way – I didn’t want to be late to the government loyalty classes that were the hallmark of the vice presidents Christian Patriot outreach program. He just looked at me blankly, all humor drained, and said, “sorry, Mac but all excess monies are being appropriated for the wars – new law just got passed or at least that what the neighborhood control agent told us” and he nodded to a thuggish looking fellow over in the corner pretending to read a newspaper. These days I often wish I could read a newspaper again but there were just too many more loyalty levels to achieve to earn that privilege, probably never get there. Oh well, I guess I didn’t need the change as much as the nation – things in Iran and China weren’t going as well as William Kristol and everyone in the War Ministry had thought they would in the beginning and money was needed for munitions and rations (suddenly I was glad that I didn’t get the crackers, that would mean more for the troops).
I found myself, only for a brief moment….very brief moment, thinking back to a time when laws were made in the open and we knew about them ahead of time and even had some measure of input. I quickly forced myself to think about the mandatory joy of supporting the wars effort…hopefully before the agent in the corner detected too much thought. I thanked the waiter, gave the required salute to President Over Commander McCain and Co-President and Exorcism Minister Palin, and was on my way.
I would add a snide and snarky summation but these expressions, along with sarcasm and irony, were in the first wave of bans to come down by executive order back in ought 9 – just before construction began on the border walls surrounding the Real America enclaves. How time flies, it hardly seems like eleven years since the election.
lethargytartare
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
yes, he can
Ron Cantrell
The exact same story was in a letter to the editor in the Waco, Texas paper today. The editor called the man who wrote it, and quoted him as laaughing and admitting he had made it up.
Barry
Mr. Cole, you sir, are a scholar and a gentleman. I like your perspective on beer and and your sense of humor. (I myself prefer my Weizen Kristall.)
Mnemosyne
And yet when I got a flat tire on the 110 back when I was in college, it took about 2 minutes for a nice man to pull up and change it for me. I didn’t even have to pretend not to be a feminist. :-)
I think that’s one of the things that enrages me most about right-wingers: they assume that everyone else is as selfish and self-centered as they are despite the millions of examples that we have of ordinary Americans helping each other every day.
Arty Choke
@Mary: This is how the world changes. This is so important. We change it a person at a time. An idiot reconsiders and it’s like a flower has bloomed.
LanceThruster
Marge: When did this happen? When did we become the bottom rung
of society?
Homer: I think it was when that cold snap killed off all the
hobos.
wagonjak
I found this take-off on your conservative comment at another thread…a little harsh, but…
Rush Limbaugh went into a restaurant and was served by a waiter sporting an Obama ‘08 tie. Rush ordered a triple cheeseburger with bacon and an extra large order of fries.
When the bill came Rush declined to tip the server and explained to him that he was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. The waiter stood there in disbelief while Rush told him that he was going to redistribute his tip to someone whom he deemed more in need—the homeless guy outside.
At that very moment, Rush Limbaugh suffered a heart attack brought on by years of cigar smoking combined with no exercise and consuming a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet. His years of prescription drug abuse had also left his heart in a weakened condition. In between gasps of breath, Rush begged the waiter to call 911. The waiter replied, ‘why do you expect the government to do everything for you, you socialist SOB?’
Then Rush pleaded with the diners for someone to administer CPR. The diners in unison yelled at him, ‘pick yourself up by your own bootstraps, arsehole! Don’t expect us to pay for your irresponsible lifestyle choices!’ Then Rush died. The diners picked up his corpse and fed it into a wood chipper. A parade was held in celebration, a national day of thanksgiving was declared and everyone got the day off.
The end.
HyperIon
Pyramid’s is pretty good.
update: my bad for not reading all the comments. i see that Pyramid has been mentioned. i think Widmer’s is less good.
HyperIon
yes!
bellatrys
Well, it helps *a lot* if you live inside a bubble in which you only socialize with other wingnuts for decade after decade! (This also helps a lot with the creation and maintenance of Incertus’ Bullshit Nostalgia, too.) I’ve discussed this online and off with a friend who I met via blogs but turns out is also ex-theocon like me and knows a lot of the same folks, and we go back and forth over "Were they [we] ALWAYS this bonkers & we couldn’t tell from inside, or has it actually gotten worse?"
I’ve decided that it’s a little^h^h^h^h *lot* of column A and a lot of column B, too – yes, there was always this much crazy, this much total-eclipse-of-the-sun w/r/t reality – I mean, here we were in 19-aught-seventy-seven talking about how the Godless-Commie-Pagan-Liberal-Feminist-Enviromentalist-Secularhumanists were going to come take away all good Christians’ children and put us all in reeducation camps, okay? That is NOT the voice of Sanity talking, imo.
But I don’t think it’s *totally* that now that we’re out of it, we can see how crazy it was. People who had *some* outside interests and were not entirely unmoored from non-magial thinking thirty years ago, have gone completely over the edge – the rightwing equivalents of talking to people who believe that they *are* reincarnated Atlanteans who can control the availability of parking spaces in downtown Boston with their minds. (I have met such folks. There are a *lot* of them in NH. They’re harmless unless they buttonhole you, though.)
Even twelve years ago (when I was a lot less distanced from it all) I could see the shift: people who’d worked for the Reagan adminstration lending a serious ear to talk of *which* sort of blessed candles would keep off the Angel of Death in the coming Apocalypse as forseen by Padre Pio, and did they have to be 100% beeswax or would 50% work just as well?
That may have been the breaking of the foundation support of my own theocrazy – I’ve never been able to exactly pinpoint any single moment, only lots of stressors, but I do distinctly remember sitting in the parlor surrounded by people with advanced college degrees and interests in the arts and sciences, many of them, and realizing We are discussing whether or not the bloody *Angel of Death* can be repelled by which brand-names of *candle* – and they complain about the Occult in D&D? Whuh? What am I DOING here?
(It’s very disturbing, because I can read Dreher’s drivel – or even Pat Buchanan’s ’92 Convention Speech (the one Molly Ivins said sounded better in the original German) – with a totally split mind, kind of like reading a foreign language: half of me nods along, finding it all perfectly reasonable, on an emotional level, because that’s how I was raised in the 1970s and ’80s, so that i *voted* for Buchanan without ever bothering to read a word he’d written, I just *knew* he was Godly and Prolife and that was all that mattered – the other half of my brain is boggling at the texts *and* my agreeing self!)
IMO it was partly that impending Y2K cracked a lot of brains, and made the magicmiracleprophecy side get a lot stronger. But also (& moreso) the fact that they’ve been associating with only themselves for so long, and kicking out anyone who dares to utter heresies like, "But what’s *wrong* with lattes? *I* like them!" or "You know, Dante said not all pagans would go to Hell," and this winnowing-out over a course of 30-odd years has resulted in Purest Essence of Wingnut, the result of all dilution being expelled and the convergence of the remaining Real True Wingnuts from around the globe to rally and reinforce each other against the horrible brutal unspeakable persecution they undergo each day, from people who MST3K them and call them mean names…
mikeinportc
Another phony anecdote making the wingnut rounds, repeated by Limbaugh – snore!
Why not tip the waiter and buy some groceries for the homeless guy ?
You got that right on the UFO vs Sam Adams .
" If you like Blue Moon, head to your local BevMo, and head to the Belgium section spin around and just start randomly grabbing. You’ll really enjoy.
Blue Moon? Blechhhhh!!!! The worst of it’s type! Try Allagash, Middle Ages, Victory, or Brewery Ommegang.
As for me, right now ? Smutty Nose Pumpkin ( They don’t overdo it with the pumpkin/spice thing)
Mike G
Then Rush died. The diners picked up his corpse and fed it into a wood chipper. A parade was held in celebration, a national day of thanksgiving was declared and everyone got the day off.
And they all lived happily ever after.
That’s the most uplifting story I’ve heard in a long time. Much better than yet another "being a selfish asshole is morally superior" reich-wingnut astroturf belch.