I just never started and never will. If you want to talk politics join DU.

So on the money.

...summary.

True story - I used to be a member of a history book club. Interesting group, diverse views, ranging from conservative to liberal, but all in all, a good group.

Enter Birth Certificate Man - wanker loon, who used to post on Facebook and send emails to all and sundry about Obama's birth certificate, and the Bene Gesserit Doom Warriors of Al Qaeda (it's now ISIS) who were going to destroy America, blahblahblahblah.

There came a moment of clarity. I had two choices - I could continue to attend, and in the process tacitly endorse the view that Birth Certificate Man was an "adult" whose views were "worth listening to", and whose opinions demanded "respect" on my part.

Or, I could pitch it, and in the process toss overboard the idea that this was someone who I could take seriously (not likely) or someone whose views were worthwhile (no) or someone I wanted to spend another second of my limited time with (no, not really).

End of book club, end of pretending, end of polite hypocrisy. I just don't have time for this kind of bullshit anymore, and my life is simpler and more enjoyable as a result. I just don't have time to pretend any longer.

You people who are fortunate enough to have friends relatives who aren't conservatives, or conservatives that respect boundaries just can't know what people like us go through.

"Just don't talk about politics" you say. I really wish it were so.

It's impossible to steer around the minefields of political talk when they are so busy sowing mines, throwing brickbats, browbeating you at every turn. People who turn even more hostile if you refuse to respond to their baiting than if you did respond and rebut their points. I now have family members, and a few long time friends so afflicted; so much that we rarely speak anymore.

It's not me, it's them.

Even the weather is off limits, invariably global warming will come up one way or another.

Walking on eggshells is putting it mildly.

Point out something like "Holy cow, look at all those geese; there's tons of them!" and they'll say something like "Yeah tons; like all the tons of money the government likes to spend...."

See a sign along the highway that says improvements made by federal improvement funds and they'll say "Oh great, more spending that'll add to the deficit!" This coming from unread wankers who didn't even know the word or show concern for it before "the deficit" became a right-wing talking point after November 2008.

Getting stopped at a red light: "I'll bet that's a democrat light". One actually did say that.

Spotting a bunch of wind turbines while traveling: "More left wing stuff to make power for "librul" electric cars" or some stupid shit like that.

It doesn't matter: It can be what you eat, drink, wear. Sitting in front of even apolitical TV gives them all the ammunition they need. This or that actor is "left wing". Everything they don't like is "left wing". Seriously, they just add that label, "librul" or "left wing" to stigmatize anything, even when it's apolitical.

The worst ones are the ones that try to bullshit you into thinking they arrived at their partisan bullshit by insight and analysis. You can tell right away they're so unread and uninformed. A big thing with them is complaining about policy harming them by "democrats and republicans"....and then proceed to bitch about all the cutbacks in the social safety net; completely oblivious to the republican obstructionism. Point this out and they shed their non-partisan veneer in a flash and angrily defend their stupid single issue bullshit like guns or religion.

I'm done with them. Fuck 'em.

I quit going to the local book club for the same reason. Conservative politics, and they talked about God all the time. Even if it had nothing to do with the bad modern fiction they were reading. They wouldn't take most of my suggestions because either the authors or subject were too liberal and they would turn it down in a kneejerk reaction.

I thought that was what a place called "Church" was for, but apparently not.

"patriotic" on FB, posting all the Tea Party stuff about how awful political correctness is. And in person she says some strange things. We were trying to drive into New Haven to go to an art exhibit last February and it started to sleet and got very slippery. She said "If I slip and fall on the street' I'll never forgive you." That was the last straw for me. I simply said "Let's go back." I"d had it.

I've lost two long time friends (One I've known for forty years, one for 45) because they wanted to borrow money and were getting into deeper and deeper holes and I knew I would never be paid back. I got more and more depressed and finally said NO.

Large chunks of my lifetime friendships just GONE because of the shitty economy.

a war on Christmas type poster and demanded "Share if you want to keep Christmas" or something like that. It was a rant about people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." As if anyone was preventing her from posting it on the Internet, sending out cards that proclaim it, going to midnight mass, etc.

At first I thought it was because she lost her husband to brain cancer a couple of years ago and is still in mourning (which I deeply understand...mourning is not something anyone should question in another). She also has two grown sons with Aspberger's and will never have grandkids. That must be hard to take.

It's too bad, really. We were Literacy Volunteers together and I remember the good times in the friendship. I hate to lose that...

Ultimately, life is just too short to put up with strident, willfully ignorant political viewpoints. Even from people you love.

What's the point, really? One of my uncles still believes Saddam was behind 9/11!

the rest I attribute to the fact that propaganda works, especially if it comes at you from all directions. If your newspaper, your TV news, your megachurch, and the people at work all say the same thing and tell you that other sources of information are "too liberal" or "in danger of ruining the country," you're going to end up brainwashed.

A couple of months ago, my goddaughter unfriended me on Facebook. I tried to think of a reason, and the only one I could find was that I reposted a post from a friend's daughter, who works as a public defender and who continually deals with African-Americans and Latinos who get the book thrown at them for offenses that would be shrugged off if committed by a white person.

All of a sudden, my goddaughter's posts no longer appear in my news feed, and I go to her page to find out that I am unfriended. I looked at the "likes" on her page and found that she is a fan of Duck Dynasty, Chris Kyle, some survivalist outfit, and Carol M. Swain, a Vanderbilt University professor of African-American descent whose main theme seems to be "those other black people just need to shape up, and it's the Democrats who are holding them back." Yet at the same time, my goddaughter is a fan of Ellen Degeneres, living green, and Minnesota High-Speed Rail. Go figure.