Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Charlie
Tom Wolfe said that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged and that a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested.
But a liberal is really just someone who wants to interfere in everyone else's life because he knows better than they do what's best for them, while a conservative is someone who wants to interfere... You get the picture.
Because when I do it, it's for a higher cause. When someone else does it, he's just being a damn [insert childish political label here].
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I fit both of those definitions (robbed, not mugged though. Nobody muggs me.) Perhaps that's why I'm centrist and dont' have allegiance with any party. I've always been independent. I was the kid that would sit at any table in the lunchroom from the football group, to the programming nerds.
As an aside, one of my first memories in life was having saved up a quarter and being happy to have and play with that quarter. Someone tapped on the window of our car in a parking lot and asked if we had a quarter to spare for the phone. I asked my mom if I should give my quarter and she said it was up to me, so I gave it happily. Then I watched the person go to the next car and ask if they had a quarter for the phone... that informed my knowledge of what was actually going on with people on the street asking for money. 99.9% of the time it's to feed an addiction, and I'll have no part financing their own destruction. Of course at the time I didn't know what was going on; only that they had lied about their reason for asking for money.
In a similar vein, throwing money at problems like homelessness is a self-perpetuating problem. It's a dragon eating its own tail.