A liberal and a conservative go into a restaurant to eat lunch. The waitress is churlish; it takes forever for the food to be delivered to the table, and when it arrives, it's awful.

The liberal lifts a forkful of Mystery Meat, examines it closely, and then cries, "you know, there ought to be a law against this! The government should make these people serve decent meals, I mean, if you're going to pay money, you should not only get decent food, but decent SERVICE, too!

"I know what! We should have a Department of Restaurant Quality to oversee this stuff! Undercover operatives could go into the restaurants, order food, and if the restaurant doesn't do its job right, we should CLOSE THEM DOWN!

"And to pay for it, we'll tax the restaurants. That's only fair, isn't it? I mean, they're not doing their jobs ..."

The conservative isn't even listening.

He's sitting there thinking, "you know, I could open a restaurant and drive this clown out of business ..."

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), June 08, 1999

Answers

You follow up that incredible facial delivered on Andy with this oft repeated drivel? Not possible.

-- Bingo1 (howe9@pop.shentel.net), June 08, 1999.

Stephen,

Good evening, and good post! You forgot the part about the established media bombing John Q with 2 wks of restaurant quality crap before congress passes pacification, after snoop drudge and his brother scoops everyone.

-- R. Wright (blaklodg@hotmail.com), June 08, 1999.

Stephen: A conservative can often be oppressed by his own devices and mind, thus leading to stricture of expression.People many times feel at home with others who are more relaxed, who just may be more fanciful and expansive with their creative endeavor(s). It really all depends on the clientel. Who do you want to please? ......... Sophisticated people or milk toast mongers? Sit down, relax Stephen and enjoy yourself at the table!

-- Feller (feller@wanna.help), June 08, 1999.

This troll is attempting a rift.

-- Feller (feller@wanna.help), June 09, 1999.

The conservative goes on to open his restaurant and is deservedly successful. Over time, the conservative opens a few more restaurants nearby, and soon has a nice proto-monopoly going in away-from-home dining. Other similarly eager entrepreneurs of no particular political bent see the conservative's success and, in the sincerest form of flattery, imitate his approach, even adding a some highly innovative, competitive wrinkles of their own. Local diners are ecstatic at all the fine food available at reasonable prices.

The conservative begins to have pangs of worry and meets with the city council. Using his now substantial resources, he "persuades" the city council to limit the number of restaurants to a certain number per square mile, citing the need to "safe-guard the free market". Of course, existing restaurants are grandfathered in, essentially driving the innovators out of business. The latecomer restaurant owners are outraged, and file suit in district court.

The conservative now becomes even more fearful and meets with his lawyers and the district judge. Again, using his substantial resources, he "persuades" the district judge to throw out the suit as meritless. The latecomer ex-restaurant owners are furious and stage a picket at one of the conservative's restaurants. The conservative goes ballistic and calls a hasty meeting with the city's police. Once again, using his growing, substantial resources he manages to "persuade" the chief of police to violate the latecomer ex-restaurant owners' first amendment rights. A few of the latecomer owners are brutalized and arrested, spending the night in jail for "disturbing the peace" and "resisting arrest". Sadly, in the scuffle, one ex-restaurateur struggles with an officer who had drawn his pistol. The officer is accidentally wounded, even though he originally provoked the peaceful demonstrators (at the conservative's behest). The conservative now panics, fearing bad PR and goes into a "spin" mode. Hoping to deflect blame, he meets with the local newspaper and TV stations. Using his near-monopoly resources, he finds he is able to "persuade" the local media who go on a rabid campaign to outlaw all demonstrations in the downtown area unless a permit is obtained, signed by the city council, the chief of police, and the area's "leading businessmen". As an added measure, all forms of handgun are now explicitly denied in the city limits, even though the state allows concealed carry. The food is still OK, but the prices are kind of high and seem to keep rising.

Thus the conservative journeys from free competition, to monopoly, to business/government "partnership", to destruction of individual rights. Of course, this has never happened anywhere before, and would never happen in America, right? Right?

My point. When either are operating at their worse, Conservative is really no better than Liberal. One can and will screw up our freedoms, our economy, and our lives as easily as the other. Ignore the labels. Listen to what they say. Watch what they do. Be wary of "cozy" relationships between government any particular group (business, banking, environmentalists, unions, pro-abortion, anti-abortion, etc.), especially if the group has substantial or even unlimited influence and resources. No group is above or in preference of the law, and the law must have its basis only in a duly approved constitution. And I really wished this last part described America, circa 1999, but it doesn't...not by a long shot.

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), June 09, 1999.

Beautiful story Nathan. Great neutralizer. Stephen?

-- Feller (feller@wanna.help), June 09, 1999.

Stevie won't follow the train of thought far enough. It's too real.

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), June 09, 1999.

Nathan, Adam Smith couldn'ta said it better.

-- jor-el (jor-el@krypton.uni), June 09, 1999.

"The effect of the Liberal-Conservative system is to lump together a whole bunch of mistakes, walk each individual up to a fork in the road, and convince him that he must go one way or the other - choose one or the other big bag of blunders. Most people do as they're told, and a reasonable, innovative candidate of integrity cannot now be elected by Americans anywhere at the state (province) or national level." (Daniel Pouzzner, MIT)

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), June 09, 1999.

Nathan,

When the liberal persuades the government to infringe upon the rights of others, he is still a liberal.

When the "conservative" does so, he is no longer a conservative.

I doubt he was ever one to begin with. The fact that someone makes money and dislikes liberalism does not make him a conservative.

-- GA Russell (garussell@russellga.com), June 09, 1999.

"The left is not liberal any more than the right is conservative, and the right has no more use for liberty than the left does." --- Seymour J. Metz (csy2k)

Hallyx

"Hu-mons are nice friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holodecks are working" - Quark

-- Hallyx (Hallyx@aol.com), June 09, 1999.

an interesting related proverb...

"If you are under 20 and you are conservative you have no heart. If you are over 40 and you are liberal you have no brain."

Kind of catches the essence of how the older you get the more likely you are to hike your pants up to your chest and bitch about the government.

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), June 09, 1999.

Yeah, I remember when a woman, whose name was really Sara Lee, opened a little cafe called Sara Lee's and was sued by big corporate SARA LEE. Now wasn't that nice of that big corporate bully for pouncing on a woman using her own name to make a buck. I've never bought one item from that company since.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), June 09, 1999.

Many conservatives are former liberals who have been mugged.

Many liberals are former conservatives who have been arrested.

-- rick blaine (y2kazoo@hotmail.com), June 09, 1999.

GA Russell,

When the "liberal" uses government control of private enterprise to infringe upon the rights of others, he becomes a Communist.

When the "conservative" uses private enterprise control of government to infringe upon the rights of others, he becomes a Fascist.

For anyone outside the inner circle, both are essentially Totalitarian. Guess which path America is on.

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), June 09, 1999.