TALENT SHOW. Got bored, decided to check out some of those Republican-with-an-explanation types. You can get a good idea of how Neo-neocon operates from this meditation on a "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican" bumper sticker:

Someone's idea, no doubt, of humor, based on the slogan "Friends don't let friends drive drunk."

But it doesn't seem all that funny to me, not by a longshot. Although it's ostensibly being said tongue-in-cheek, there's a certain hardnosed sentiment behind it, one I've encountered way too many times. It's a sentiment that -- although espoused by a person who no doubt would identify him/herself as a liberal -- embodies the opposite of traditional liberal thought.

What an interesting idea of friendship, that it must march in lockstep, belief matching belief. What an interesting idea of Republicanism; that it's something pernicious and dangerous, something from which friends must be protected. What an interesting idea of voting; that it's something you "let" or "don't let" someone do.

Yes, I know: lighten up, neo...

She didn't leave the Left, the Left left her. It's easy to see why.

Git yer Liberal Hunting License here, though you might prefer one of these.

UPDATE. I meant this to be a mere bag-o'-shells but this joke, like "The Aristocrats," opens itself to some charming variations. N-NC is linked by Dog in New York City. Dog, though misnamed ("I happen to live in a liberal, college town in the Midwest"), is a treasure. The Fatal Bumper Sticker prompts the revelation that he once had this liberal friend...

I was a bit taken aback upon discovering that my friend had been pulled into the radical circles of the “artsy” Left...

...When it became clear that I did not share my friend’s and his cohort’s conviction that “America had it coming” and that 9/11 was our (i.e. Americans’) damn fault... he became vicious. From a friend he turned into a bitter and vindictive enemy... He demanded that I return all things that he ever gave me - which a promtly did; he kept sending me nasty letters, returning my responses without opening them, until I, too, stopped receiving his; he badmouthed me to our mutual friends (whom he eventually managed to alienate as well).

Dog is a former resident of Eastern Europe, where apparently friendships between males are a little more hysterical than we're used to.

Why can’t I see it as just an isolated incident - a single guy, perhaps mentally unstable, turning into a vindictive asshole because someone disagreed with him? It’s not a proof that the whole Left is like that! Of course, that’s what I thought for a while...

...and then he describes a reign of terror in his small Midwestern town by, it would appear, affluent, well-educated liberals who key cars and rip up lawn signs. Dog compares his life there unfavorably to his days in the Soviet bloc:

When I was still living under a totalitarian regime, one of my friends remarked bitterly: “When you are afraid of criminals, you can always go to the police for protection. But when you’re afraid of the police, who do you go to - criminals?” I did not know than that there existed a lower circle of Hell, one in which you have to be afraid of your co-workers, neighbors, friends, and people you pass on the street.

Dog's circle of Hell is similar to that of other folks who talk a lot about how badly they fit into whatever community they have inexplicably chosen: Dante called it "Il Hilarioso."