Anti Liberal

Wifey continues to feed my reading habit in a most economical way: she has books sent fromour local library. A few years ago, when her back was so bad that it was tough for her to leave the house, she signed up for a program that lets you order books online, which are then mailed to your house. Our library in Miami Dade is actually quite good and efficient, and the books are very current.

Wifey prides herself on knowing my taste (she really could be a librarian) and is usually very on point. Her latest is David Mamet's confession of moving from being a liberal to conservative. I've been reading it and it resonates with me.

One of his points, which is well known, is that liberals tend to give far less in charity, individually, than conservatives. This is of course because libs think government ought to help the less fortunate, by taxing us all more, while conservatives believe more in self determination and less government. Plus, conservatives tend to believe more in quaint concepts like religion and God, and feel compelled, largely, to help because of those commandments...

Anyway, I do admit to enjoying some liberal friend tweaking...and a small event Saturday was a prime example of this.

D1 was at a local liquor store, doing her part time job of selling a brandy for an importer. We figured that several friends and acquaintances would see her, and they did.

2 folks stopped by, and they happen to be some of our more conservative friends, politically. They said hello, and bought a bottle of the brandy, having no intention, I'm sure, of drinking it. The husband, who I'll call Mike, since that's his name, is a gin and tequila man, and his wife, who I'll call Loni, prefers white wine.

Still, doing what most of us would do, helping out a friend's kid, they happily bought a bottle, and will tuck it away for possible use if, oh, say, the most interesting man in the world comes over, and wants cognac instead of Dos Equis.

Later, another old acauaintance came by. Wifey says I have to stop identifying local folks when they act like assholes or jerks, so I'll just say she is someone we've known for a long, long time. We don't socialize, but keep in touch through other people.

She greeted D1, saw what she was doing, and blithely said "Oh, we don't drink brandy" and trotted off to buy some vodka.

I don't know. I've ALWAYS bought crap from friends and neighbors' kids --even reams of Christmas wrapping paper, much of which sits getting moldy in my garage. To me, it's the decent thing to do -- to help whatever the child is doing, whether fundraising or getting ahead.

Not so the uber liberal...she probably rushed home to drink martinis and read "The New Republic" and catch NPR...

Of course I know I paint with an absurdly broad brush, and the friends who bought the brandy are simply good folks, while the one who ignored D1 is not, at least in my book...

Plus, as a protective papa bear, ANY slight to my Ds, no matter how insignificant (D1 really couldn't have cared less about this --literally shrugged and said "no big deal, or any deal" when I pointed this out to her) is magnified.

All I know is...sending away a friend or neighbor's kid, no matter what, well, that makes you the kind of person I want nothing to do with, to twist grammar.

Back to Mamet's book tonight...he's just getting to the part about apologists for Obama's abysmal performance ('he inherited a mess!") by pointing out that he campaigned preciscly on the principal of fixing the mess...

Interesting times, as the Chinese curse goes, and interesting people...