Father-daughter talk

On Dec 8, 2007 11:23 PM, [granddad] wrote:

Hi [stepdad]; Great lesson in politics; I'm going to forward it to each of my grandchildren. Thanks for sending. [granddad].

On Dec 7, 2007 8:01 AM, [stepdad] wrote:

Father - Daughter Talk
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words, redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends
because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?" She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her father asked her, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend Audrey, who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.

"The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That's a crazy idea. How would that be fair? I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work. Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

On Dec 9, 2007 11:23 PM, I wrote:

Epilogue
The daughter changed her vote that November, and learned the true meaning of democracy -- that year, a single vote made the difference and a new Republican governor was elected to run her whole state.

Her new governor cut funding to education -- after all, why should the children of slacker parents get access to the same resources that harder-working parents can afford? Unfortunately, it turned out that the daughter attended a state university, a public university funded by the state (say, like a SUNY, or a UC, or UVM, like many of the grandkids on this list), and soon found that the library was no longer being maintained, nor were the school grounds or dorms. Meanwhile, grad students and associate professors could no longer afford to work (for less and less pay, and worse and worse health-care), and so they had to go elsewhere -- so the instructor-to-student ratio was becoming extremely unbalanced, and the quality of classes was worsening. About half of the extracurriculars that the overachieving daughter participated in were cut by the administration in order to realign finances. The daughter, who had relied on the help of advisors, librarians, grad student mentors, and administrative staff, found it harder and harder to achieve -- and, with just a touch of painful irony, her GPA dropped to about a 3.0. She was sad at first that this would make it much harder for her to follow up with graduate-level study, but realized that there was less and less money in that anyway and decided to get a job as a personal assistant.

Her friend with the 2.0 GPA was a slacker indeed; luckily, her parents were very hard workers in their day. When conditions worsened at her state university, her father was easily able to fund her in transferring to a private university. Three years later, after the prestige of the public university had dropped to an all-time low, the
slacker daughter found that the private-university diploma which her father had bought her was worth more than she'd even realized, and she used it to score a well-paying but relatively easy job -- so that she could send her own kids to the same school she'd gone to.

Luckily for the hard-working daughter, her old slacker friend offered to hire her right away as her personal assistant.
"But you don't want to interview other candidates, or see my resume?" she asked. "You're just going to take me on because of where I'm from, and who I know?"

"Welcome to the Republican Party," said her new boss.