I do think being a Republican is a strong indicator that one is not very intelligent or thoughtful.
My dad and best friend are republicans
- Thread starter Jayson
- Start date
I think Locutus already gave the correct answer:No its not. If the thread title was: My dad and best friend have an opposing political ideology - THAT would have been a "big stretch." I agree with Nerys; its as if the OP is suggesting Republicans are a long since dismissed political dead end - that there are no Republicans.... anywhere
Didn't you move to Tennessee?
No its not. If the thread title was: My dad and best friend have an opposing political ideology - THAT would have been a "big stretch." I agree with Nerys; its as if the OP is suggesting Republicans are a long since dismissed political dead end - that there are no Republicans.... anywhere
It's Jayson. Are you really going to take offense?
Man, you Tea Partiers really need to grow some thick skin. You're always blaming someone else for shit.
Sounds a lot like many of the Democrats I know. Just trying to discuss politics with them sends them into a rage when I suggest anything different.
Newsflash: People get angry when confronted by things they don't like. Film at 11.
Well there's getting angry, which I myself do quite often, and then there's flying off into mindless rage.
Though, to be fair, there's been plenty of times when Republicans I know do the same thing to me.
Though, to be fair, there's been plenty of times when Republicans I know do the same thing to me.
Try telling that to all the engineers and PhDs in my city.
No its not. If the thread title was: My dad and best friend have an opposing political ideology - THAT would have been a "big stretch." I agree with Nerys; its as if the OP is suggesting Republicans are a long since dismissed political dead end - that there are no Republicans.... anywhere
Right, because Jayson is a notorious political rabble-rouser.
I was enthralled by his impassioned call to arms against corporate greed and political corruption in the latest issue of Unicorn Eaters Monthly. It's especially hilarious coming from someone like you who's had a string of hot-button political avatars and sigs over the past year after being an apolitical deadzone before that. But now just saying "My dad and best friend are Republicans" and clearly following it up in the OP by specifying that he wants to talk about being close to people with different political mindsets is somehow considered provocative? Give me a break.
It's way too early in the election cycle to already be getting pissed off or offended by shit this petty. Pick your battles or it's going to be an incredibly tedious year.
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These days your political affiliation has more to do with where you are than your intelligence or career.
I'm with Squiggy. I grew up in an affluent New York suburb, lived in Vermont for a few years, and now live in an affluent Boston suburb. I tend to lean left.
My wife grew up in California and Washington before heading east. Also liberal areas. She also leans left.
I'm a licensed professional engineer in four states working on my second master's, and she's an Ivy League educated PhD and an instructor at another Ivy League school.
Our voting preferences are much more of a nurture rather than nature concept. Being an engineer or PhD has little to do with it.
If we grew up elsewhere, I wouldn't be surprised if we voted differently.
People raised around a great deal of other people tend to have liberal mindsets. If you had to rely on or "deal" with a great number of a diverse population, you tend to favor policies that would make that easier. Fiscal liberalism because you know that providing a government to a great number of people costs money and social liberalism because chances are you knew someone unlike yourself and it affects you personally.
People raised around less people tend to have conservative mindsets. If you didn't have to rely on people outside your family because if population or distance from others, intrusion on your personal bubble seems as though it's an affront. You favor fiscal conservatism because the infrastructure you were raised around was "good enough" and didn't cost that much. You also probably weren't around many people unlike yourself so social conservatism doesn't seem that bad.
As for myself, I was raise in one of Tennessee's reddest counties but my mother was fairly liberal. I interacted with a diverse population so I wasn't ever socially conservative. My former Republican tendencies stemmed from fiscal issues. However, that changed when I moved to Atlanta and interacted with more people and then got laid off. Then I realized that occasionally liberal fiscal policies aren't that bad. Moving to the liberal Washington metro area further solidified those ideas.
People raised around less people tend to have conservative mindsets. If you didn't have to rely on people outside your family because if population or distance from others, intrusion on your personal bubble seems as though it's an affront. You favor fiscal conservatism because the infrastructure you were raised around was "good enough" and didn't cost that much. You also probably weren't around many people unlike yourself so social conservatism doesn't seem that bad.
As for myself, I was raise in one of Tennessee's reddest counties but my mother was fairly liberal. I interacted with a diverse population so I wasn't ever socially conservative. My former Republican tendencies stemmed from fiscal issues. However, that changed when I moved to Atlanta and interacted with more people and then got laid off. Then I realized that occasionally liberal fiscal policies aren't that bad. Moving to the liberal Washington metro area further solidified those ideas.
That seems like it would so self-evident, but I guess I never thought about it in terms like that.
I'm extremely liberal and my parents and much of my family are conservative, and they also blend that with their religion, so it's hard to change their mind on much of anything. And like what Squiggy was saying, many of them grew up in rural areas, and his theory of the "good enough" infra-stucture fits them exactly. I hate to get into stereotyping, but that type of thinking just personifies so much of the Republican party way of thinking. Things are "good enough" the way they are/were, and if they do happen to try something new and it doesn't work out just right, they go running back to the old ways instead of trying something else new.
An exact conversation I've had with some of my family (including my dad) on facebook is regarding the Republican "repeal" of Obamacare. "Okay," I say, "what would you replace it with because there clearly is a problem with healthcare in this country and don't say tort reform?" And they have nothing.
Nothing (except, of course, tort reform).
That's the main problem I have dealing with those family members, they're big on soundbites, but when you get down to the policy-wonking, they just fall back on the soundbites: (cut spending! cut taxes! guns for everybody!*)
*except "those" people, of course.
I've been on both sides, I grew up thinking Republican and voting Republican...actually, let me take that back: I grew up voting Republican. When I started well and truly thinking about how the world works, I realized the majority of Conservative ideas simply didn't apply to the real world. And one of my biggest frustrations in talking to my conservative relatives comes when they bash Obama, who is the best moderate Republican president this country has seen in decades. They honestly cannot look at specific instances where I can prove that (like the individual mandate being a Republican idea), and admit it was their idea first. There is a -D behind his name, and that's unacceptable to them.
No its not. If the thread title was: My dad and best friend have an opposing political ideology - THAT would have been a "big stretch." I agree with Nerys; its as if the OP is suggesting Republicans are a long since dismissed political dead end - that there are no Republicans.... anywhere
That's some serious paranoia you're embracing there. To take a joke thread and try and make it about your own beliefs being under attack is rather ridiculous.
No its not. If the thread title was: My dad and best friend have an opposing political ideology - THAT would have been a "big stretch." I agree with Nerys; its as if the OP is suggesting Republicans are a long since dismissed political dead end - that there are no Republicans.... anywhere
That's some serious paranoia you're embracing there. To take a joke thread and try and make it about your own beliefs being under attack is rather ridiculous.
It's very Beckian though. Something unrelated = [highlight]PERSONAL ATTACK[/highlight]
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Amaris
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That makes sense. In my case, I was raised in a very conservative household, in a community where conservative values and ideas were firmly in place. I am liberal, though, and it's due directly to my desire to give people the same allowances for their humanity that I would like to have.
I would like to be free to worship, free to marry, free to interact with whom I wish without having a governing body tied to a supposedly moral institution telling me I can't. I would like to know that if I get sick, I won't be refused treatment because my pocket book is too small. I have always felt that life is sacred in it's own way, and the idea that we let money dictate who lives and who dies bases on one's ability to pay for treatment is unreasonable and uncivilized.
Lastly, one of the reasons I became liberal was my personal religious journey, as a former member of the Christian faith, to me it seemed completely reasonable that we were our brother's keeper, and should look out for one another as people to be loved and respected. That lead to putting myself in other people's shoes, and wondering how I would feel if I were summarily judged and indicted for doing something perfectly natural. While I no longer adhere to any faith, that part of who I am remains because I felt that way regardless of my system of religious belief. It was just the human thing to do.
As a final thought for this post, while I am certain there are Republicans who find things like gay marriage to be personally acceptable, the fact of the matter is that the GOP itself is tied in with the "moral majority", and yet doesn't behave in any reasonably moral way. That is simply unacceptable.
No its not. If the thread title was: My dad and best friend have an opposing political ideology - THAT would have been a "big stretch." I agree with Nerys; its as if the OP is suggesting Republicans are a long since dismissed political dead end - that there are no Republicans.... anywhere
Given that you and Nerys are actually interpreting it two different ways, isn't it possible that you're both reading into it a bit? She's comparing it to having a disease, while you're interpreting it as saying there are no Republicans left.
Oh for goodness' sake, now we are never gonna rid ourselves from even more shameless advertising of Nerys Ghemor's fanfic in here. Damn you!
