How about this... I'll respond to this copy-and-pasted trash with something I actually wrote... to be a Republican, do you have to regurgitate the snide irrational garbage sent to you in chain letters, or is that just a necessary quality of the stupid?
To be a Democrat:
You have to believe there was no art before federal funding.
Within today's society, wherein more people care about who's getting voted off American Idol than have been to an art gallery in the past... ever, a hundred million dollars can go a long way towards preserving what little culture America has left, so you don't end up having to get by on football, Britney and bbq ribs.
You have to believe that the same public school idiot who can't teach 4th graders how to read is qualified to teach those same kids about sex.
Yes, first massively underpay public school teachers, then make fun of them. If you're that concerned about the quality of public school education, how about making the funding of childrens' futures a bigger priority than dropping bombs on people? As for the sex comment, they'd sure be able to do a better job of teaching those kids about sex without having their hands tied by regulations that say the only teaching strategy permissible is preaching abstinence, and the only context in which birth control and STD prevention methods can be discussed is in terms of failure rates. You know who ends up having to teach half my nearly-20-nowhere-near-virgin American friends sex ed? Me, when they ask such basic questions that I have to go, "You're... you're serious?"
You have to believe the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of funding.
Yes, because if there's anything that can't be helped by funding, it's the spread of a sexually transmitted disease. We've already gone over the BEST method for preventing the spread of AIDS, the education your party enjoys suppressing so much, but hey, how about a few million free condoms? Might save a few lives? It sure would in AFRICA, but rich white men don't count those guys as people... so nevermind. Let's get back to funding those bombs.
You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than nuclear weapons in the hands of the Chinese.
They probably ARE... what are the odds that China's going to Nuke anyone, they're already setting themselves up to play a much larger economic role. American gun deaths involving high-power nuclear weapons ever? Somewhere in the vicinity of zero. American gun deaths in 2003, the most recent single year from which stats on this are available? 30,136... and only 347 of those were a result of legal intervention. I don't have the exact figures for China, but they're much lower, and there are billions of Chinese. Maybe they ought to have the handguns as WELL as the nukes...
You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the brilliance of the Sun, and more affected by yuppies driving SUVs.
Can't it be both? Yes it can, and it absolutely is. To assume otherwise is to be unsurpassedly naive.
You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being gay is natural.
Uh... that's more true than not. How can you NOT understand that gender roles are in absolutely no small way a result of social development? Bigotry, fear and intolerance will lead anyone to the conclusion that those different from them are unnatural, meanwhile, but that's a whole different thread.
You have to be against capital punishment but pro abortion on demand -- in short, you support protecting the guilty and killing the innocent.
How about supporting a woman's right to control her own damned body. Any understanding of the doctrine of double effect would support phrasing a pro-choice position like that REGARDLESS of whether one considers abortion of a fetus "killing an innocent", which, of course, is up for serious debate, so good job just asserting like that. As for capital punishment, the argument is hardly for protecting the guilty, and more in the vein of, "If what they did was wrong, it doesn't make a ton of sense to say that it's right for us to do likewise."
You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
You'd have to be a particular special kind of stupid not to realize that big business is not out to create prosperity, but to increase its earnings, to make more money, at absolutely ANY cost. Including widespread national prosperity. A government, meanwhile, is supposed to at least encourage prosperity and well-being among its citizens, usually by setting the parameters of life under its jurisdiction. I say "supposed to", because, as the current American administration exemplifies, they don't always keep their eyes on the prize as it were... this one seems to be a bit more concerned with helping their corporate associates with that whole "bolstering profits" thing.
You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but pasty, loony activists who've never been outside Seattle do.
Hunters care about shooting animals. Whether some of them care more or less about the environment is a case-by-case matter. Environmentalists, whether they leave Seattle or not, damn well DO care about the environment (hence the title), often way, way too much. I mean, come on, why would they be such irritating nitwits about it if they didn't give a shit? Wake up...
You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
Like being born into a few million and looking down on "new money"? Is that what we're supposed to call "earning it"? How about the position that giving someone a shred of dignity and a fair chance at a life actually worth living is more important than your fourth wall-sized plasma TV?
You have to believe the free market that gives us 500+ channels can't deliver the quality that PBS does.
I've never heard anyone say that PBS is the best thing on TV, and if they did, I'd say they have pretty shit poor taste, but those 500 channels, for all their millions of dollars, don't offer a hell of a lot more. Mostly they just rip off each others' reality shows. If it wasn't for Kiefer, Hugh Laurie and James Spader, there wouldn't be much worth watching out there. Wait, I'm drifting... what was the original point here? Oh... right... there wasn't much of one, was there.
You have to believe the NRA is bad, because they stand up for certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good, because they stand up for certain parts of the Constitution.
"SAM
[points at Josh, getting steadily more emotional] But for a brilliant surgical team and two centimeters of a miracle, this guy's dead right now. From bullets fired from a gun bought legally. They bought guns, they loaded them, they drove from Wheeling to Rosslyn, and until they pulled the trigger they had yet to commit a crime. I am so off-the-charts tired of the gun lobby tossing around words like 'personal freedom' and no one calling them on it. It's not about personal freedom, and it certainly has nothing to do with public safety. It's just that some people like guns."
-From "The West Wing"
The ACLU stands up for the rights of people who can't protect themselves. The NRA stands up for the desire of people who enjoy shooting things.
You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.
The latter are fees that exist for no reason other than the fact that the banks want more of your money, taxes exist for the betterment of society, or, if you're GWB, to buy those new missiles you righties seem to love so much. Why are you complaining again? Oh right... you love your wallet more than the improvement of the status quo within your country. By the way, I've never heard of a liberal rally over ATM fees... pretty sure this one's just fabricated.
You have to believe that Harriet Tubman, Cesar Chavez and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, General Robert E. Lee or Thomas Edison.
Since when? Who has actually said this? Straw men flying everywhere around here... they're all important. Pissing contests over "who mattered more" are juvenile and meaningless anyway, but I doubt you'll find many liberals who will say that Gloria Steinem was more important to the course of human progress than Edison. Thanks for coming out... and... making a bunch of shit up?
You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides aren't.
Actually, they both are. There's pretty much no way to justify double standards like those. Of course, there's no way to justify decades of slavery, or the genocide of aboriginal populations of millions of people, or the unilateral seizure of lands on no grounds whatsoever, but hey, that's all in the past, let's just let it go, right?
You have to believe conservatives are racists, but that black people couldn't make it without your help.
Conservatives aren't racists, but isn't it just so funny how it seems like all racists are conservatives... anyway, I'm not sure you have to be patronizing and paternalistic to be a liberal, but I guess supporting improving the situation in inner city neighbourhoods and LA school districts where your average junior high has to spend as much on metal detectors as textbooks is pretty much the same thing. Or not.
You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried, is because the right people haven't been in charge.
Actually it works pretty well in Scandinavia... it's hard to pin down what socialism really means, since there have been so many different interpretations of its goal and how it should manifest itself, but let's just say that the reason it doesn't work on a large scale is that people in general are lazy if not properly motivated, and the reason that certain socialist doctrines work so well is because an idea that seemed so great in theory can't be all bad. Quick, call me a commie, McCarthy.
You have to believe that Hillary is actually a lady.
Oooh, a Hillary crack. How original and clever! You know, maybe it'd be better if she weren't; half you righties wouldn't vote for a woman... her place is in the home, right? Seriously, if you're going to go after a future presidential candidate, you should be able to come up with something better than that, especially since the rebuttal is bound to be, "This from the party that just spent eight years confidently and unwaveringly driving this country into a brick wall".
You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drags, transvestites and bestiality should be constitutionally protected and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.
On government property, it should be illegal... separation of Church and State. You conservatives sure do hate democracy; at every turn you seem to be more in favour of a theocracy than anything else... and all the crap you spew about wanting smaller government is just great, maybe you can make it just small enough to fit into peoples' bedrooms! Maybe we should just call God the head of the country and let Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson interpret what's best for everyone. That sounds like a recipe for success.
You have to believe that illegal Democratic party funding by the Chinese is somehow in the best interest of the United States.
Excuse me? Prove this. There have been enough distortions and sheer lies in here to make me sincerely doubt this accusation is accurate. Even if it were, funding isn't actually subverting the best interest of the United States... unless you're preaching to morons.
Oh wait.
Nevermind.
I'm sure this has all been very persuasive to your base.
