How do you deal with political differences with family and friends?
- Thread starter Lord Garth
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My friends are not too much in to politics, so, I don't have to worry about many of them getting butthurt. With my family, my mom sometimes takes things way too seriously because she has a bad habit of not actually listening (or reading, if it's on facebook) all of what I am saying and taking it the wrong way. I have an uncle who has unfriended me twice, which is okay, I guess, it's his thing, whatever. We never argued or anything, he just saw my political comments in a discussion on FB and clearly didn't get what I was saying so he unfriended before actually 'getting it'.
Some people just have selective hearing/reading. I don't have any hard feelings, I don't take this kind of thing that seriously. People just need to understand that not everyone will have the same opinion.
Some people just have selective hearing/reading. I don't have any hard feelings, I don't take this kind of thing that seriously. People just need to understand that not everyone will have the same opinion.
I've made it my New Year's Resolution to Ignore Donald Trump.
Except for during the Midterm Election (where I'll vote Straight Democrat). Unless there's a super-significant development in Robert Mueller's investigation. In which case, it's Mueller Time.
Except for during the Midterm Election (where I'll vote Straight Democrat). Unless there's a super-significant development in Robert Mueller's investigation. In which case, it's Mueller Time.
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I avoid discussing politics with pretty much everyone I know - family or not, off- or online. Yes, it's probably a copout, but life is short and I'd rather not spend any portion of it it arguing about politics. The fact I hold all "sides" of politics in complete contempt probably has a lot to do with it as well; the notion that one "side" of politics has all the answers and is sweetness and light and rainbows and goodness, while the "other" "side" is pure evil, is one I find utterly puerile. Too many political "discussions" seem to devolve into that sort of childish simplicity and I don't want anything to do with it.
Having said all that (and being quite aware that to some extent it contradicts what I've just said)...
Having said all that (and being quite aware that to some extent it contradicts what I've just said)...
I couldn't agree more with this. The right to vote is something countless people the world over have fought and died for. If a person has that right and chooses not to exercise it, they have absolutely no right whatsoever to complain about the result.
I know how some of my family generally votes, but it didn't come up recently when I saw my siblings over christmas. I know both my parents generally vote for the Liberals (conservative party) and myself (labor). I think two of my siblings vote for labor also. I know how some my other family votes, but it's never a big issue here. Got one uncle who is very pro-Trump - so have to be careful how him when politics is talked about.
I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, pretty much all of my family and friends are liberal (some more than me, some less), so I don't have much of a problem. The only issues that I have to deal with are work related - I work at a public library, and I have patrons that come up to our circulation desk and want to have long political discussions with me and my co-workers. It can sometimes be a real hassle to get out of those.
Family and real life friends are mostly on the same wavelength. Some of us disagreed about Clinton vs. Sanders, but no hard feelings.
My non-US cousins seem to be very conservative politically. Since most of my contact with them is on Facebook, I never ever express opinions there about their country. I haven't known them very long, and I don't want to antagonize them before they really get to know me.
My non-US cousins seem to be very conservative politically. Since most of my contact with them is on Facebook, I never ever express opinions there about their country. I haven't known them very long, and I don't want to antagonize them before they really get to know me.
Oh the arguments we have here about brexit!
Increasingly being anti brexit is automatically equated with being some sort of collaborator with a perceived occupation by the EU. To be honest some of the behaviour and sentiments I have heard are outright scary, with some politicians now routinely getting death threats and being openly labelled traitors in certain parts of the media.
I'm no great lover of the EU in it's current form, but the biggest issue with Politicans in general is that often they don't seem to be hearing what the electorate is telling them at the ballot box.
I pick my battles.
Only one it could get heated with is my father who is conservative yet seems to hate all politicians so I tend to bit my tongue.
My niece who is 15 is starting to take a interest in the political process was discussing issue like global warming when he picked up for the Christmas break.
Her mother used to have "Liberal" for politics on her facebook profile so the niece could be following after her.
Only one it could get heated with is my father who is conservative yet seems to hate all politicians so I tend to bit my tongue.
My niece who is 15 is starting to take a interest in the political process was discussing issue like global warming when he picked up for the Christmas break.
Her mother used to have "Liberal" for politics on her facebook profile so the niece could be following after her.
Another get-together today for New Year's. Today, the only President who came up was Abraham Lincoln. I brought him up. We celebrated Jesus Christ's belated birthday. My half-birthday is February 12th. Lincoln's Birthday is February 12th. I came up with an idea, "Why don't we celebrate Lincoln's birthday?" No one I know has a problem with Lincoln. Another success.
For the record: Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy are my two favorite Presidents. Unfortunately, both also ended up getting assassinated, so I know how to pick 'em...
For the record: Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy are my two favorite Presidents. Unfortunately, both also ended up getting assassinated, so I know how to pick 'em...
Nope. I owed my grandfather respect for being my grandfather and being the head of the family (to some extent; he was into patriarchy, which caused a lot of arguments after I got into my teens and early 20s), but I did not owe him respect for trying to indoctrinate me into his anti-Jewish views. The first time, I was too young to know the difference between a "history lesson from Grandad" and indoctination, but after a few years' worth of social studies, history, and other reading - along with the case of a high school teacher indoctrinating his social studies students in anti-Jewish, Holocaust-denying attitudes, I realized what my grandfather had actually been up to, and put my foot down.
So the next time he opened his mouth about it, I told him, "You should stop watching T.J. Hooker, Star Trek, and anything else with William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy in it. They're Jewish. And you may no longer read any of my science fiction books if you're going to keep talking like this to me. A lot of the authors who wrote those books are Jewish." And when he started out with "But-" I told him "'But' nothing. I mean it. I don't care if you think it. But I don't want to hear it. Not ever again."
He didn't like that I said that, since he had always told me that I had no right to my own opinions until I was adult, and after that, my opinions would be whatever he or my husband told me they would be. He was quite angry when my grandmother, dad, and I all told him we were voting against his preferred candidate in the next federal election (the disgraced high school teacher had been stripped of his teaching license and had decided to take a crack at politics).
Same here. People have all kinds of excuses for not voting, but "don't have time" isn't something I have a lot of sympathy for, nor is "there's nobody to vote for."
It's the law in Canada that if your work hours don't give you enough time to get to the polls either before or after work, your employer is obligated to give you 3 consecutive hours off so you can vote. My bank closes early on election days to permit their employees to get to the polling stations. In addition, there are advance polls, mail-in ballots, and special in-home ballots for disabled people who can't get to the polling station.
If you feel the only possible answer is "none of the above" (keep in mind that in Canada, the federal ballot will have at least 5 choices in Quebec and 4 in the other provinces and territories as that is the number of main parties we have in federal politics), there's a simple way to make that known without either not voting or deliberately spoiling the ballot. Go to the polling station, check in, go to the voting station, get your name crossed off the list... and then formally decline your ballot. The Deputy Returning Officer is obligated to make a note of that, and it's a formal way of saying "I hate these candidates/parties and don't think any of them are worth a vote."
Deliberately spoiling a ballot is pointless, since our system of voting is by pencil and paper, and the votes are counted manually. Spoiled ballots are put into a separate envelope, tallied, and I guarantee that the only thing that will run through the DRO's mind during the count is "How hard is it to mark an X? What an idiot." At no time will it make the party leaders sit up and say, "Oh, dear, we have ____ spoiled ballots. We must improve our election platform and get better candidates." Or at least I've never heard that they care that much about it.
I used to have a picture of Pierre Trudeau up on my wall. It was a humorous one that I tore out of a magazine, because it made me smile to see our Prime Minister goofing around a bit.
Then came a weekend when I had a friend over to visit. She took one look at that picture and ordered me to "Take that picture down!".
I told her that it was my wall, I chose what went on it, and if she didn't like it, she had my permission not to look at it. I lost touch with that friend in the early '90s, and have no idea where she is now or what she's doing. I doubt she ever changed her views that all things Liberal are Evil, and can only hope that she didn't jump on the Reformacon bandwagon when a party worse than the federal Conservatives came along, hijacked the Conservatives, and are now working hard to "get back in power" in 2019.
Another friend who didn't used to support the Reformacons does now... I had to defriend her on FB because her posts became increasingly linked to people affiliated with those who advocate assassinating my province's Premier. Assassination hasn't generally been the Canadian thing to do in the past and I want no connection, no matter how many degrees of separation, with it now.
Seriously I don't need to be heard to feel confidence in my political beliefs. If I sit at a table with older relatives or younger ones for that matter, they can spout all the crap they like. For family I will take it on the chin, unless they go out on the streets and do something abhorrent. Being right is not always right.
The difference is that you are currently an adult. I'm talking about a time when I was about 8 or so (that I recall) the first time my grandfather started spouting this anti-Jewish stuff. I didn't know any better at that age, but once I did know better, I was appalled and decided I didn't want to hear any more of it.
You don't actually have to vote for anyone just go and spoil your ballot, in the UK they announce the number of spoiled ballots. At least spolling your ballot shows that you ould be bothered to go and vote even if it was a vote for no one rather than not bothering to vote and complaining about the result. Every vote matters and whilst it is rare sometimes candidates are tied and it goes to a coin toss or cutting a deck of cards.
Maybe his dog turned down his proposal...(what an insult equating a canine to a human being).
My protest vote was the Monster Raving Looney party....gotta love em!
I might vote Labour Corbyn next time even though I am politically close to Lib Dem, its funny how politicians never have money for public services but always find money to bomb the hell out of people.
Why does it matter who somebody else decides to marry?
But I'm a little co nfused from my understang many people who oppose Gay Marriage in the US lean towards the GOP and are in favour of limited Government that is to say they don't really want the government interrferring in their everday lives. Yet they want the Government to say who can and can't get married. As for the reglious argument isn't that trying to impose your beliefs on others, I'm fairly sure there is something in the US constitution about freedom of religion (whic also means freedom to not belief in a god) but then again perhaps as a Brit I might be mistaken in my knowledge of the US constitution.
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