Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<And when you get right down to it... you're the one who's bothered by my rhetoric.>> I'm not the only one. Just the only one who doesn't immediately ignore you. I actually listen to what you have to say and respond. <<Trust me. The folks that remain are not going to change. The GOP is getting more and more psychotic every month. And their loyal constituents are eating it up!>> That's where you are dead wrong. It is probably that way in San Francisco, but not in the "real world". According to a Rasmussen Reports piece dated April 4, 2013: "53% of Republicans See Tea Party As Political Plus; 32% of Democrats Say Same of Occupy" Sure, it is troubling that the majority of Republicans see the Tea Party in a positive light. At the same time, it shows there are 43% that still might listen to reason. Those are the people that can still be convinced.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I'm not going to claim I've been able to turn anyone I know in SW Missouri into an Obama voter. I rarely discuss politics with anyone here until I know them very well, then I approach it gently. But I have been able to show a quite a few that Obama is not the Socialist Devil they assume he is. For most of them I am truly the first strongly middle-class white guy they have EVER KNOWN who was an Obama voter. I've shown them that not all Obama supporters are Black are on welfare or walk around with "Obamaphones" in their pocket. I've shown them that MY values and those of many Obama supporters are little different from their own. Sure, it's just a foot in the door. But it's a start. You can legitimately say "Why bother? In 10 years (or less) changing American demographics will leave them irrelevant anyway." And that would be true. But I would like to see that day come with less bitterness and divisiveness in the electorate than there is right now.
Originally Posted By barboy ///It's bad enough these two clowns refused to approve disaster relief for Sandy./// I guess you and others on here just flat out disagree with one of the most basic points of Article I------representation of/for the local folk. These Senators have a Constitutional duty to legislate anything that is 'proper and necessary' at the US level for the benefit of those that elected them at the state level.
Originally Posted By barboy ///Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma has stated that Moore needs federal disaster relief funds, despite voting against (and speaking out vehemently against) the Hurricane Sandy relief bill./// Isn't that expected? It seems to me that it is.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Wrong. They won't. The folks who remain in the GOP are the teabagging morons who cannot change or the religious conservative types who refuse to change*** This is incorrect and dangerous thinking. The GOP slammed the crap out of the Democrats in the mid-terms just three short years ago - and AFTER all the "hope and change" stuff to boot. Fact is, it was the teabagging morons who PREVENTED them from taking over the Senate too, which they had a very good shot at doing. Just last year, some sixty million Americans voted for Romney. Are they all teabagging morons who can't change? Maybe so, but if so that's pretty frightening to consider. Ignore these facts at your peril. The Democrats surely did in 2010.
Originally Posted By Mr X Oh, and by the way Skinner you know I like and respect you very much, and we agree on a great many things, but in this instance I think you're only helping to prove the "two extremes" argument. And that's coming from an unabashed liberal.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance Last night I was browsing some of my families facebook pages, ones that I'm not friends with because it's been so long since we've had contact with each other. I was looking at my cousin's page back in Pennsylvania. Basically it consisted of republican rant, and how he's a god fearing, gun toting, conservative republican. And how he hates that they keep raising the minimum wage, and how he only wants marriage to be with one man and one women. I was literally getting so annoyed reading it, I knew right then and there I'd never send him a friend request. And it made me wonder how others feel about that. Do you not friend people on Facebook because of differing political standpoints? For me, the fact that he's so in your face about it and obviously it consumes his day to day life, I felt it would never be worth having that stuff on my Facebook daily to have him as my friend. I can definitely get along and even be friends with those who have differing views than I, but he tipped the scale a bit too much.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Do you not friend people on Facebook because of differing political standpoints?<< In theory, I like having friends across the political spectrum. I like to be challenged in my thinking. However, there's a difference between reading legitimate political arguments and getting screamed at. I have unfriended a couple of people because the far right rhetoric got to be too much to take. Really hateful stuff that drifted into racism. At 50 years old, I don't need that garbage on my FB page or in my life, so "unfriend". It's sad when you realize someone has that much rage and hate in the, especially when from outward appearances they seemed like nice people. Roadtrip, I basically agree with what you're saying. I'm just feeling less reasonable these days after 4 years of listening to a whole lot of made up nonsense from the noisy far righters.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Do you not friend people on Facebook because of differing political standpoints?" Absolutely. But first, I have to say I'm speaking for my wife. I'm not on Facebook because of my work. If I was, I'd just be inviting idiots like this <a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Judge-Grants-Restraining-Order-on-Christopher-Dorner-Admirer-195809131.html" target="_blank">http://www.nbclosangeles.com/n...131.html</a> further into my personal life than they already are. My wife has one particular friend from high school who is a rabid tea partier. People used to disagree with him whenever he'd post something sbout Obama being a socialist or the like, but then he'd bombard people in response. I would imagine everyone has or knows someone like this. With this guy, people just don't respond anymore, not with a comment or a like or dislike. He now assumes the silence means everyone agrees with him. My wife has since unfriended (why that's now a verb is just wrong) the guy, and tries to be more careful with who she lets in.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip The majority of my FB friends are conservative. In fact the liberals are primarily friends from LP and real-life friends I had in Minnesota. There was only one time when constant right-wing rants became a real problem for me. I kept her as a FB friend but changed my settings to show "only important" updates in my news feed. That eliminated almost all of the political posts and ALL of the re-posts from other blogs. She and I had "agreed to disagree" long ago and would occasionally comment on each others posts, always keeping it respectful and without name-calling. But responses by some of her loonier wing-nut friends were too much to take, so I made the change to settings on our friendship as previously mentioned.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip You can change that setting on a friend by friend basis... I still see all updates from my other friends.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <I share your frustration for some of the over-the-topness of this board (hell, I'm probably guilty of it myself), but moderate it all you like, and it won't make any difference. That's not how people work.> I'm not so sure. I'm well aware of the studies that show how so many people just dig in when presented with facts that contradict their beliefs, but even if a majority of people do that, it's nothing approaching 100%. You CAN get through to some people. I remember when being against the Iraq War was a lonely position, both here and in the real world (even to a degree in NY). But I also had more than one poster here tell me that I had convinced them, after steady and hopefully intelligent arguments, that invading Iraq had been a terrible idea. They actually changed their minds (!) And we saw that in the country as a whole. When the invasion occurred, a strong majority of Americans supported it. That was no longer the case by 2005, and for the rest of the war. And it wasn't just that it had gone so badly; it had to do with how we were manipulated and misled, and how it became obvious that they had "fixed the policy around the intelligence" (in the now-famous words of the Brits) and that anyone with even the smallest knowledge of the region would never have thought that creating a power vacuum in a place where Shia and Sunni had only been kept from each other's throats by a dictator would be a "cakewalk." Millions of Americans went from thinking the invasion was something we "had to do" to understanding it was a monumentally boneheaded idea. If everyone just dug in once they reached a position, that would never have happened. Lots of people CAN be won over with logic, even though many others cannot be.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Isn't that expected? It seems to me that it is.> It's expected of Inhofe because he's a hypocrite. It shouldn't be expected in general. We really should expect most people to say "We're all Americans. If NJ is socked with a hurricane, of course the nation as a whole should help out. And if OK is socked with a tornado, of course the nation as a whole should help out." Natural disasters are exactly that: natural (and no one's fault), and disasters that most people affected will need help to recover from. That's the attitude we should expect of our elected officials.
Originally Posted By Tikiduck Personally, I have found the vast majority of Republicans in my small world to be the more outspoken. This doesn't often apply to reasonable discourse either. On the contrary, the conservatives are almost always the ones who resort to aggression and bullying tactics. This has many causes, but most often it's obstinate bigotry, and a stubborn refusal to accept facts. I don't think anyone here can argue as to which political party is more receptive to facts.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I'm not so sure. I'm well aware of the studies that show how so many people just dig in when presented with facts that contradict their beliefs, but even if a majority of people do that, it's nothing approaching 100%. You CAN get through to some people.<< You are correct. I find myself sliding back into cynicism, then overreaching with my comments.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance I'm generally very tolerant of people who have a different opinion than I. But I go on facebook to have fun. Who needs all the tension? I have unfriended a couple people who ONLY seem to post about things that are so against what I believe in, it literally becomes offensive after awhile. And being atheist, there are those certain people who can't help posting all about Jesus day in and day out, and that usually brings a lot of judgemental/offensive posts, so if they aren't bringing anything else to the table, I can do without that.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>But I go on facebook to have fun. Who needs all the tension?<< Bingo. From @pourmecoffee's "fine print": >>I instantly and irreversibly block based on @replies I find even slightly annoying. Yes, it’s selfish. Yes, it’s about me. That’s the whole point. It’s not that I care about your brilliant reply or who reads my posts. You could very well be “right.” I just don’t care. I don’t want to hear it. I have no patience for conflict junkies or hyper-argumentative people polluting my stream. I don’t want to debate you. I don’t want to trade clever put-downs. I don’t want to go back and forth trying to get the last word. I don’t like to be trolled, nitpicked, insulted or bothered. If I happen to see something annoying, I immediately block without first getting in some clever remark of my own. This is a personal account. You’re not paying for it. Shocking: I don’t like to get hassled, and will block to avoid it. I’m not the guy to satisfy your need for epic battles, flame wars, or online validation. There are plenty of people itching for a fight, just not me. Go be annoying, rude, combative or your positive spin on those things somewhere else. I will ruthlessly curate my online experience to selfishly satisfy my own sensibilities and make it fun for me, period.<<
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance Oh sweet Jesus, browsing facebook again, and my whole family is a bunch of nut jobs. (excluding my immediate family) No wonder I moved across the country from them.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf "The right has pulled so far off into the far right that Obama is labeled "extreme." He's pretty centrist, really, and yet the right paints him as this extremist. I don't see that happening in the other direction to the same extent" Each side says that. A lot of Republicans thought that Bush was a centrist as well and we know what the left thought of him. The center moves based on what your perspective is.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf "Lots of people CAN be won over with logic, even though many others cannot be." I know I have reconsidered many of my positions based on thoughtful discussions on these boards. But it takes a cool head and solid logic to make that happen - something that isn't always present unfortunately.
