Never has so few words been so wrong until the the Christmas Day Chicago Sun-Times Daily Rant came along. Not only does it unreasonably call the mean, pre-ghosted version of the Scrooge character a “traditional, conservative Republican” but it then goes on to swerve to the opposite — and equally wrong — conclusion that the post-ghostie Scrooge is a “bleeding-heart liberal.” In truth BOTH claims are quite wide of the mark in analogy. In fact, not only did the Sun-times miss a true reading of the characters, they got them juxtaposed!
Here is the short, and woefully wrong Christmas Day Daily Rant:
I can’t understand why people are so in love with Charles Dickens’ story ”A Christmas Carol.”
Let me see if I understand the story right: Scrooge starts out as a traditional, conservative Republican, and because of the interference of three, uh, ghosts, he ends up a bleeding-heart liberal. Why is this such a good thing?
Erroneous Claim One: the eeevil Republican Scrooge
The fact is, that Republicans are not only happier, but they also give more to charity than do Democrats and liberals. This being true, calling the sour, mean-spirited, miserly pre-ghosted Ebenezer Scrooge a “traditional, conservative Republican” is an absurd claim. Republicans are neither miserly nor mean as a general rule by the facts we have at our fingertips.
So, the mean Scrooge being a typical GOPer is absurd and insulting.
Erroneous Claim Two: the bleeding-heart liberal Scrooge
Similarly, the post-ghostie Scrooge is not a typical liberal at all. The Scrooge that is so happy to give his fortune away does not match the actions of a liberal. You see, a liberal doesn’t want to give his own money away, he wants to give every one else’s money away. As noted above the proof of that is the fact that they don’t give to charity, but support nanny state government programs and confiscatory taxes. Since we saw above that Republicans are more happy, and more charitable it is far less likely that a Scrooge that is deliriously happy to be helping others with his own fortune could be in any way a “bleeding-heart liberal”!
And last but not least, in the original book the post-ghostie Scrooge attends church after his ghostly visits. This in and of itself disqualifies Scrooge as being a Democrat OR a liberal!
So, whoever wrote this Chicago Sun-Times Daily Rant didn’t “understand the story right.”
Nope, not at all. So a big BAH! HUMBUG! to you Sun-Times.
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4 users commented in " Chgo Sun-Times: Mean Scrooge a Republican, Nice Scrooge a Liberal? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI’m not sure how anyone can think the pre-ghosted Scrooge is a conservative Republican.
– He believes charitable services are best run by the gov’t (”Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”).
– He is decidedly not pro-life (”Better that they should die, and decrease the surplus population.”).
– He doesn’t want to recognize Christmas, a religious holiday.
Sounds like a typical liberal to me!
I just watched the George Scott version and pre-ghost Scrooge is in fact just like conservatives who are always complaining about the “useless people” who don’t work. The comment, let them die and decrease the surplus population is exactly their approach to those who can’t afford health care. As a matter of fact, I was thinking that conservatives probably think the title is “The Ruination of A Perfectly Good Man” instead of “A Christmas Carol”.
BTW - Repubs have INCREASED the size of Government consistently, they’ve also sent more American citizens to die on foreign soil and WASN’T IT THE REPUBLICANS who wanted to work through Christmas Eve this year?
I can’t wait for my chance to vote Bo(EH)ner out of office!
[…] to the Blogger News Network, last year the Chicago Sun-Times claimed that Dickens’ protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge, was at […]
The Sun Times had it exactly right, the analysis above is propaganda; Scrooge was definitely a Republican before the Lord sent the three ghosts to remind him he was on his way to hell if he didn’t become more mindful of the plight of his fellow man. Nations can be righteous as well as individuals, and a righteous, more equitable economic policy does reflect the Christian values of a nation. We have drifted far from that because of unfettered super-capitalism. That was the very Christian message that Dickens was conveying.
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