A smoker's lounge with a unique ceiling :
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We liberals identify so much with the underdog that it sometimes seems that we are programed to act as though it's our lot in life to be the perpetual underdogs when it comes to elections. Although we desperately want to be right on the issues ideologically, we don't seem to know or care about translating ideological superiority into political superiority. However ideologically and morally right we have been for decades on most of the political issues, we have let people as stupid, incompetent, and / or immoral as Nixon, Agnew, Reagan, Quail, Lott, Delay, Robertson, Falwell, Rove, "W" and a whole flock of other "chickenhawks" defeat us so regularly at the ballot box that these dumb and immoral people have now won the trifecta. They have finally achieved their goal of adding the only branch of the Federal government that had eluded them for so long, the U.S. Supreme Court.
Despite the fact that the majority of Americans agree with us liberals on the vast majority of issues, Conservatives have proven themselves shrewd enough to persuade a majority of the public to vote for Republicans. Either that or they are shrewd enough to persuade Democratic politicians to let the votes be counted by Republican computer equipment which enables Republicans to win even if the public is trying to vote for the Democrats! Either way, Democrats need to wise up. You may not think of Jesus as a politiician, but he was right on target when he said, " And the master commended the unjust steward, for being so shrewd (using his boss's money to cultivate future benefactors for himself) : for the children of this world are in their generation more clever than the children of light." (Luke 16:8)
People today may think that the smoking industry has always been a paper tiger. But as someone born before World War II, let me assure you that for decades it seemed that no one would ever be able to lay a glove on the big tobacco companies. For years they never lost a case in court. They advertised their deadly products constantly and everywhere. And that is why hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans are still dying prematurely each and every year, and will continue to do so for years to come.
But thanks to the persistence of many committed liberal activists, times have finally changed, as is illustrated in this picture of an area where smokers are allowed to endulge in their deadly habit:
A 2005 Harris poll showed Americans divided as follows :
| Cause | FAVOR either Strongly or Somewhat |
OPPOSE either Strongly or Somewhat |
| Medicare | 96% | 3% |
| Birth control | 93% | 4% |
| Condom use to prevent AIDS/STDs | 92% | 5% |
| Medicaid | 91% | 7% |
| Sex education in high school | 87% | 10% |
| Funding international HIV programs | 87% | 10% |
| Universal health insurance | 75% | 7% |
| Embryonic stem cell research | 70% | 19% |
| Funding international birth-control programs | 70% | 21% |
| Withdrawal of life systems/food for those in vegetative state |
68% | 17% |
| Abortion centers | 63% | 32% |
| which shows that these Americans should be |
Liberals & Democrats |
Conservatives & Republicans |
| Here's the full Harris Interactive poll from which the above was taken. | ||
