Following President Obama’s state of the union address on Tuesday — or really, even as it was going on, via social media — conservatives and libertarians hauled out all of their tired old arguments about big government, “why does every social problem require a federal government solution”, and other clichés. In response, liberals and progressives countermanded with their own arguments — some of them based on the reality of people in need, but just as often resorting to their own collection of hackneyed tropes. Invariably, this meme popped up:
I see this in my Facebook and Twitter feed more often than I can count; after the president’s address, it seemed everywhere. It’s a great quote, I don’t argue with its sentiments, but I question its value when you consider the other side really embraces an inverse view of the social problems it describes. That got me thinking of what an Ike from a Bizarro World might have to say. Hence the sketch above.