Telling [OregonMuse]

Well, there's no new thread by any of the other cobs in the pipe, and the book thread is starting to get that 'not so fresh' smell, so I guess I'll put up something I've been saving for just such an occasion.

Nothing illustrates the difference between the conservative and lib-prog worldviews like seeing the respective values play out in real life. Like a comparison between photos of the OWS camps vs. photos of Tea Party rallies. Or what the Capitol Mall looked after the Obama's inauguration vs Bush's inauguration 8 years earlier.

Here's a real-life story that I think also illustrates this:

There's a political split running through my family, with my father (when he was alive), brother, and myself (and Mrs. Muse, of course)on the conservative side, and a collection of cousins holding up the liberal end (my father's sister married a school teacher, quite liberal, and had a whole passel of liberal kids).

About twenty years ago we had a family reunion. Instead of meeting at some public park or somebody volunteering to host it at their house, as my parents did back in 1976 where I got drunk off my butt and smoked weed with another uncle (but that's another story), we decided to have it at a Mexican restaurant close to where most of us lived. We arrived first and arranged with the management to reserve some tables. Soon the liberal contingent showed up and immediately started ordering, and they weren't shy about scarfing many appetizers, entrees, and slamming down beer and margaritas like Prohibition had just ended.

And then, at the end of the evening, every member of the liberal side of the family got up and walked out, leaving their bills unpaid.

In retrospect, we should have made clear that it was expected that everyone vwould pay for their own meals. I think we expected that everyone would know this, but apparently it did not get communicated, and apparently we were very naive. The problem is, it would never occur to my father, my brother, or myself to go to a restaurant, gobble down a bunch of food, and then walk out without asking the obvious question, who's paying for this?

As it turned out, my father was the one who ended up paying for it. I think my brother helped, but back in those days, I didn't have much money, otherwise I would have helped, too, more than my own meal. We were in an unenviable situation where it would have been gauche to make our liberal relatives aware of their bad manners and irresponsible behavior. Looking back on it, perhaps we should have. But my dad was so pissed, he didn't want anything more to do with them that evening. He just said screw it, and paid.

So, the moral of this story is, isn't it telling that the group that gorged themselves and then left without even so much as asking a question about payment were the liberals? And that the conservatives were the ones who had to pick up the tab? You can argue politics all you want, but I think it's incidents like these, where the values that people live by are put into practice, that really tells you what the two sides are all about.

posted by Open Blogger at 12:17 PM

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