So I'm Confronted by this Republican last night...

at a Barnes and Noble book store. I am sitting in the comfy chair reading a copy of Paul Waldman's "Fraud." The man sitting next to me, we'll call him George, cuts into my reading with a:

George: I read that book, but it was strictly for material on what kind of spin is being put on the liberal media that would like nothing more than to bring B*sh down.

Me: Hey I watch Fox News for the same reason, pure material.

George: At least you are getting you're material from the only credible source you'll find on television now.

...of course once you hit Fox News talk, it has a tendency to get away from you, and the conversation is drawn out way more than it should be. At some point I named a few websites he should check out, this one as well as mine included. Which in turn he named it to more than likely be communist jargon. That one kind of came out of left field. Anywho, in the end, of course it came down to the war (on mankind).

George: From what I gather, I assume you are another one who is against the spreading of democracy. (he even sounded like he was on Fox News)

Me: If this is democracy, freedom and liberty, then absolutely I am against it.

...at this point he stood up to leave, but not without the jab.

George: Well go join the goddamn Taliban and get out of America.

Me: Excuse me Mr. Hannity (that was fun to say), but that is completely uncalled for.

George: Go to Hell.

Me: I'll say 'hello' to Mr. B*ush for you.

...and that was that. A communist, a terrorist, and I'm going to Hell. Geez, this caring about TRUE "freedom," democracy," liberty," and good will for the innocent is "hard work." Just thought I share that little story, life is fun.

www.blackeyedsundays.com

that's what they all seem to say. if we don't like it, we belong with terrorists. :puke: :eyes:

i'm afraid what i might say to one next time i come in contact with them....i have a habit of saying some ill shit :shrug:

I have really worked on controlling any temper that may come up during a political debate. If you keep your cool, you'll come out looking like the winner after your opponent over reacts and walks out like that.

www.blackeyedsundays.com

Have a big grab bag of facts to dump on the opponent, and be ready to counter the standard jabs with truth. Keep calm and you will make it harder to reject your words.

Nah...........just kidding!!

You did good though.

in a parking lot because of my bumper stickers ("Bush Is A Punk-Ass Chump" & "How Many Lives Per Gallon").

Part of me wanted to jump out of my car and kick his ass, but the buddha nature within me came out ( ;) ) and all I said was "I hope the hatred in your heart doesn't consume you. Have a nice day."

Ultimately, I feel good that I reacted like that. He was the loser and he knew it. And he had to go home and hate himself, while I got to go back to work, down some Rescue Remedy, and post about it in the Lounge :)

I hate to say it but I avoid my rabid republican friends so much they could barely be considered friends anymore. There is NO middle ground with those people. They take their cues from Faux - and look at how rude the people at Faux are to even moderate liberals. I don't waste my time with those people anymore. You don't speak French (or any other language) to people unless you think they might be able to understand you. I have given up on ever getting through to these people. It just makes me angry to try. Take solace in the fact that these people are a sizable MINORITY. Also - they are some of the most frightened, angry people I can imagine. They want to spread their unhappiness, and I refuse to catch it!

The Republican party is the party of Fear, Greed and Hatred.

in spite of their obvious faux-news/Rush brainwashing. I can't talk to my sister-in-law anymore about anything. She has chosen her narrow minded politics over her respect and love for me. It is so sad. I tried to have a level headed conversation with her pre-election and she very rapidly devolved it into an insulting name calling session. She called me a pinko, commie who was an apologist for terrorists, all this swill from a woman who has a very high IQ, she just moved to Nashville and got brainwashed in the bible belt. Scary stuff, even smart people aren't immune.
:-(

daughter (who voted for Clinton both times and Gore). Now, she has listened to Faux and Rush. My son-in-law had a lot to do with that. He was in the Navy for 6 years and his brother is in Iraq. Anyway, back in May of 2004 I had been emailing her some information, factual information you might say, about the Bu$hCo Regime. For a while she did not respond to any of my emails. Then, all of a sudden, she sends me an email telling me not to send any more of that liberal shit. She said she just deletes it all and doesn't read it anyway. Then came Mothers Day. She came over to my house and I could not believe the brainwashed things she was saying. She then got really pissed at me and started yelling, and screaming at me. I told her that I hate Bu$hCo and that really pissed her off even more. Then, when I spent all of my time (evenings, weekends, anytime not working) throughout the summer working on the Kerry Campaign along with going door to door registering voters etc, and not stopping until election night, that didn't set well with her at all. Then, when the election was stolen by Bu$hCo, the next day, me and my younger daughter of course cried. My youngest daughter called my oldest daughter and said "give Mom a call" and "tell her that you are proud of her for working so hard for something she believed in so much" and "tell Mom that she didn't waste her time". Of course that caused a fight between them, because my oldest daughter said she would not do that and that Mom did waste her time. Needless to say, things had not gone well. We have now made a pact not to discuss politics at all. We love each other but will never agree on Bu$hCo. Don't know really how this happened. Sorry this is so long and thanks for listening. :cry:

Give it time, and lots of love.

In my time, it was me, oldest kid and oldest daughter, who differed from my Dad (even after voting for Nixon my first election) both on Watergate, and about feminism. That whole period between the 1960's and 70's was very painful. But just remember, Bush will come and go, but your loved ones are precious.

As time went on, it became obvious to my Dad what the Reagan/Bush gang were doing in the 1980's. I had to get a master's in poli sci, and I still "didn't know" what I was saying. My younger sister went into the State Department in the middle of it all.

My own life has been in the church, which gives you a longer perspective. I, too, worked hard for Kerry. I give you a lot of honor being in Ohio, state of my birth, and spending all that leg-time! :-) My clergyman husband and I did a whole LOT of phoning, to Ohio and other states, as well as leafletting in Wisconsin midst our trips to see our daughter.

Bush IS a great divider, NOT a uniter after all, Don't let him divide you from your daughter. You are blessed to share your commitment and sorrow with your younger daughter. Your older daughter is TRYING to find her own way, and I am sure that they are worried about her young brother-in-law. Several of my family members asked to be taken off my email list, too--people receive new information only over time, with great adjustment of their worldview.

If you can just get her to read a book or two, or even a Newsweek article, to help offset the Fox propaganda. AAR is in Ohio somewhere. And I do believe the news is beginning to turn, as on Social Security.

We wept, too--it was a huge shock to see them steal it again right in front of us, and with all the new voters and all the hard work! Let the angry words be chalked up to the grief we all felt.

God bless.

i would have punched him in the mouth

yeah that's what i'm afraid of doing

:spank:

that I have found that works. Ask them questons since they won't listen to us anyway.
Now why did we attack Iraq in the first gulf war? What did they do to get the UN and all together against them?

He will answer because he has been programmed to, both with the bullshit reason and his own sureness of "knowing."

Oh right, they invaded a couuntry that hadn't done anything to them.

And what was it aboutt the Soviet Union that was so threatening again? Oh right, they were dominating other nations...

Make them contradict themselves and then they may have to engage a brain cell or two. This takes some planning though. We need to cook up a standard sequence of questions to have at the ready (flash card?)

I really like the flash cards idea.

-Hoot

:(

No matter what he says, respond back: 'Why do you hate America?'

Actually, their love for America has been used to mislead them.
IMHO.

Fox, the network owned by a foreigner who bought his citizenship SOLELY for the purpose of buying American media? Who doesn't live here?

Democracy is worth killing 100,000 civilians?

Why won't Bush give equal benefits and equipment to reservists? Don't they die equally?

Are your children fighting in Iraq?

So you're not bothered that we were lied into war?

Do you visit the VA hospitals to help our maimed soldiers?

Really, so many responses that could have derailed the conversation.

I've learned (since this last election) how to gracefully walk away from their egotistical, conceited arrogance by asking the same thing, "So, are any of you're children going to be signing-up anytime soon for Iraq?"

Of course, they're response is the look of "dumbfoundness."

The ones I know beg for a debate. When you "don't" give them what they want, it get's them everytime. They say "misery just loves company."

I CAN'T STAND TO BE NEAR THEM---In fact, so much, that I was going through contract buying an apartment, when I found out my Real Estate Broker was a B*sh supporter.
I dumped her immediately, and lost my dream apartment....I just couldn't look at her without wanting to scream 'FUCK YOU, MORAN' at her.

Calling Faux a credible news source is like calling Bob Dickhead Taft a credible governor or Condosleeza Rice a credible ANYthing.

Yeah, that's pretty much the same type of venom I got from the right-drinkers down at the coronation's parade route. These pieces of animal shit are completely incapable of debating with any kind of factual information or logic. Just a bunch of reactionary Roveshit, fed to them in talking points via cable news and droolingly accepted without question. What a bunch of absolute idiots. Seriously.

but you sure are some bright sarcastic smart-ass. If this idiot didn´t represent millions of idiots, it would be hilarious!!!

"I´ll say hello to Mr. Bush for you" LOL!!!

god.. I wish I could have been there to see it.

I have found that when someone can no longer win an argument with
reason, they then try to hit you below the belt by degrading you.
The stock in trade of every schoolyard bully since time immemorial.
I would have simple offered him the Bronx cheer (aka "Raspberry").

demonstrated why his gang "wins" and yours loses.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

I'll say Hi to Ronnie & Dick Nixon for you.

Every now and then someone can hit you with an unanswerable question in order to make you look like he's taken over. But for the most part, these people only know what is on TV. Its virtually impossible to win the war, but the little battles can be won almost every time.

9 times out of 10 you can get them frustrated. If you do it with a smile and a crowd, you own him.

There is a natural apparatus in the human brain that thrives on and rewards us for victories, a cocktail of happy hormones shot to our heads when we score a touchdown, cut somebody off on the freeway or win an argument. It feels good, and as a species we crave it constantly.

It may seem enjoyable to bait and out-argue hard core right wingers, but please PLEASE recognize when you are dealing with someone who has lost the capacity for critical thought. You may believe you are winning an argument or putting them in their place when in reality all you are doing is feeding their growing and out of control hate.

We may joke about ill wishes for the health and well being of the freeper community, but many in that community deadly are serious in the wish for harm to befall us. It does not require much o a push for those on the edge to go from mere wishing to actively seeking.

That man who started a conversation with you did not want to discuss politics, his only goal was to verbally assault you, and he did. If you are in discussion with someone who is not interested in an actual exchange of ideas, fight the urge to appear intellectually superior and walk away.

This is getting dangerous.

If the damn freepers can't control their tempers and get physical, they will either go to jail or be sued bigtime. That's the only thing they will understand - when it hits their wallets.

j/k

... to be educated.

It was the wrong fight, but it could have been a better one. Don't get baited, but express your concerns in a way that speaks to the concerns of your counterpart. There are many "conservative" reasons to distrust/dislike Bush, and most of them are uncontested at this point; for example:

1. His treatment of the armed forces.

1a. Lying to get us into a war (he said that Iraq had WMD and he knew where they were).
1b. Underfunding / under supplying them
1c. Breaking with the Geneva Convention, which puts our forces at risk.

2. Failing to capture / kill bin Laden

3. Massive spending w.o. revenue to cover it

4. Unchristian behavior

4a. What part of "thou shalt not kill" doesn't he understand.
4b.--4x., poverty, forgivness, etc., etc. In fact, I can't think of a single point on which Christ and Bush agree.

I've gotta run (may post more later). But try sticking to points like these, and see how the argument changes.

--MarkusQ

Do you mind if I quote you on an email? You are so right about the danger. My husband has known this for a long time having worked in an atmopsphere of these kind of exchanges. He has learned to walk away. I am like the other posters, can't even look a B*sh supporter in the eye, and want to match fact to mis-conception in the hope of transformance. It aint happening, because as you say it is not about politics. Like rape is not about sex. Man you nailed it. I will remember this always, and for the first time, I will not be scared to face a (certain kind) of republican. I now know, it is not my fault for not having that one date right or piece of evidence at my finger tips. It is a waste of time. I did just tell even my "lefty" friend, that I will not talk "politics" with anyone who hasn't read a political book in the last two years. I just do not feel like talking about Katie Couric and Matt Lauer's "view / spin" of our world.

about rape is exactly right. I'm afraid there's a lot of violence ready to erupt out there, and we seem to enjoy egging it on.

intruded into your space and thoughts, merely to start an argument, and as OldMouse stated, he had only one goal, and that was confrontation.
It would seem that you really did not give him the satisfaction he was seeking by responding in anger and arguing with him, so in effect, you undermined him. I guess by maintaining a sort of passive-aggressive stance you can drive these guys nuts! Sounds good to me.
I sure hope I can do as well as you did if it ever happens to me.

They are now sounding like brainwashed robots. As if the administration who cares only about taking care of its rich corporate* friends is human enough to care about spreading freedom & democracy to impoverished countries.

*Maybe the keyword is "corporate" in their globilization view. If they spread freedom around the world, they'll have more territory to plunder & their bank accounts will stay healthy...at the American workers' expense. Just a thought.

What if we could start confronting them with something like:

"George: From what I gather, I assume you are another one who is against the spreading of democracy. (he even sounded like he was on Fox News)"

You: Who programmed you to say something like that? That sounds like a canned response from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or some divisive figure like that. That is a cruel, untinking and false accusation that only someone who can't think for themselves would spout out.


"George: Well go join the goddamn Taliban and get out of America."

You: Who gave you the idea that it would be at all appropriate for the 75% of Americans who did not vote for George Bush to leave the country? Whoever programmed you to do that wasn't thinking very straight.


If we could start throwing back at them that they've been programmed to think the way they are thinking (without actually stating it in those terms), that they are parroting back slanders they heard on tv or the radio, then perhaps it could start a few of them thinking for themselves.

At least I'd like to think that.

or send his kids there, or something like that.

(Of course in the unlikely event that he's actually going, you have to thank him for his service and all that and just say you disagree with the war, but chances are he's just a frickin' hypocrite.)

is because the world view that they've come to accept through their listening to right-wing propaganda to the exclusion of all else, is one of the right is right and the left are communists and socialists that hate American and hate our troops.

The truth is starting to slowly seep into their subconcience and it threatens everything they've been told and everythnig that they've believed. These are weak people that have been brainwashed by professionals.

panic, lots of hate spews forth. And, Novak says Dems are nasty! He should listen to Michael Savage for 5 mintues some day!

We have as much of a chance to make a difference in one of these arguements as they do in changing us. Its not going to happen. These debates really aren't healthy, except for the ego I guess, and never would I be the enforcer. This was strictly a responding role. He intervened, otherwise it wouldn't have taken place.

I never make it a point to join in on right-wing conversations because nothing will be accomplished. And in the end, they hate you even more, and honestly we probably hate them a little more too.

The problem I see with a lot of liberals and people like me in the world and on this site, is it has become waaaaayyy to easy to find the most disgusting radical red-man and begin to paint his face on everyone who is Republican. I do it at times, despite my efforts not to. Because that is a trick that more and more of the media heads are using. The liberal elite they call us. Against the war? Anti-American. Don't support B*sh's decisions? Anti-Christian.

Hell, one entire side of my family is Republican, and for the most part, very sensible people. There are great Republicans out there just like there are horrible Democrats. Stereotyping and clumping entire groups into one label is not the way to go.

www.blackeyedsundays.com

that THEY HAVE BEEN HAD!! The manipulated masses...

based on their totally unsportsmanlike sore winner approach to absolutely everything, eh?

The frightening aspect: they are so filled with hate and intolerance! They cannot discuss any issue logically. The moment they feel as though they have lost the upper hand in a discussion they immediately go into ULTRA ATTACK MODE! So much for the compassionate conservative! Too bad you couldn't remind the twit who brought the Taliban to America (Texas) in the first place. Stupidity and ignorance!!! How dare he challenge YOUR patriotism. At least you have taken the time to better inform and educate yourself! Looks like he could use a little crash course in BUSHIT and the lies they feed you!!!! Can you believe it? How can anyone KEEP feeding off the bowl of bullshit they serve up daily?

I thought those guys were afraid of us liberals and
exit poll workers!

Ah, another myth shattered!

yesterday afternoon, I got an email from my wife - I was bcc'd to a continuing conversation/argument with her dad, who during the Clinton years was anti-government, but is now all "if you don't love it leave it, Frenchie!!"

In kinder words than that, he basically suggested that if his daughter (my wife) did not think the US to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, she should just move to another country. He did not state it that baldly, nor would he really want her to leave, I just think he's been programmed to respond that way.

Well, while I usually hold my tongue out of civility, I told him that what makes a good American is one who will stand up against tyranny and that we fight the administration because we love our country so much. I also told him that the false information he was spreading (straight from FUX "News") was hurting America. Then I did the mistake - I said that he was a bad American for capitulating to Bush and for spreading his propaganda. Oops.

He wrote back to me later and we made up while still agreeing to be on opposite sides of the fence, but I actually felt really bad for starting shit with him. I was really only defending my wife's honor (although she doesn't need it really - she had been corrected some silly RW spam email he had sent her and 'replied to all' which is how this all started)

It's ok now I think, but it kinda pissed me off that he could not take the same thing he was dishing out.

I love my wife's response - instead of getting mad that I picked a fight with her dad, she said "Don't piss him off yet - he's helping us redo our floors." HAHAHA....

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

the irony is that he is way into historical re-enactment (revolution and civil wars), so I think it did sink in. We made up more or less... But we still don't agree.

Everything is still Clinton and Michael Moore's fault.... :eyes:

I used to work there...that place is like a freaking shithead magnet. I don't know what it is about the place (I think it has to do with insecure repugs much like the one you had an encounter with thinking that walking into BN makes them a well-read learned person.)


I quit 2 years ago and have never set foot in another since. That place SUCKS.

Please ignore previous post. :)

Barnes and Noble is 98% Blue. If you want to shop at a local book store instead of a chain, cool, but there will be no blue company boycotting here without seriusly good cause.

That's the problem, not B&N. For example, the Barnes & Noble in Westwood(A city in Los Angeles county in California) tends to display more anti-*\repuke books on tables that pro-repuke\* ones.

point on their political views. They have a small business nearby and I used to stop in and see them a few times a week. They cook and eat out a lot and always saved meat scraps for my dog. Well, I've known for a couple years that they are Reps- Limbaugh is on the radio all day and they have a sticker on the door of their business.

A few weeks before the election I had a yard sign for a local Dem. I guess that made me a target.

The guy started spewing his stuff at me: Kerry is no patriot, Bush is a patriot. The reason health care costs are out of control is because of all the greedy trial lawyers. Anyone who needs health care can just go to an emergency room. Its all Clinton's fault we didn't catch up with Osama bin laden.

The idea of calling AWOL Bush a patriot, and accusing Kerry of not being a patriot was the one thing that I found too stupid to even talk about. I walked out and never went back over there again.

It was really hard to do. We had avoided our differences up til recently. Which is to say that actually I'd never addressed her born-again Christian hypocrisy (I'm not anti-Christian, I just think if you're an outspoken "Christian", you should act like one.) I THINK I'm a Christian, but I sure don't believe in the same God these people do.

What I discovered is that for the most part, they don't have facts, they have talking points for answers. Once you go beyond the talking points, even though they're stuck, they remain vocal. Actually, I'm still waiting for her to get back to me with answers to my questions. She was going to ask her husband, because she wasn't quite sure - the only thing she was sure of was that she was right. That was over a month ago, but on that day I decided we really weren't friends, and that I couldn't be friends with her any longer. Someone who lives their life condoning so much evil in the name of God is no one I need in my life.

Edit: typo

sorry it got ugly. I really believe that there are many, many republicans out there who haven't quite yet realized that the republican party no longer represents their values whatsoever. You never know when having a conversation may actually help awaken one of them who hasn't been paying close enough attention. Good for you!

Hey, at one point in time I was a Republican. (raised that way)

I got called a Communist to my face for merely letting it be known I was a Kerry supporter.

Fox is nothing but continuous commentary. Fine, but tell it like it is. Fox "News" my Aunt Fanny. What freakin' news. Opinion, not news.

Just Saturday, I saw a report about the Condi hearing on there that showed a picture of Kerry looking petulant and the words, "Bitter Kerry" underneith. I don't know who's show it was, but I thought it was just the news. Could be wrong, might have been Hannity or something.

I'd have thrown in something about Bush's American Taliban, and the fact that democracy that is being shoved down a country's throat is not in actuality democracy. You can not "spread" democracy. Promote maybe, but not spread.

How did you feel afterward? I would have been shaking. But then I'm not normally confrontational. The last shouting match I had was with a Lyndon La Rouche supporter outside the library because he gave me attitude when I wouldn't sign his petition to get the looney tune on the Wisconsin ballot. I said, "No, I'm sorry." The guy replied, "Yes, you are sorry" and off we went. I called his guy a wingnut. Should have been fun, but I was indeed shaking as I got into my car.

conservativism eh? Or was that an example of their great moral behavior?

i have been looking for you. when i first came here someone gave me a star so i'm now returning the favor :)

you can come over in the JK forum now :hi: :hug:

Between both sides, is *exactly* what is desired by whomever is pulling the strings. It demonstrates to them that they are keeping the pot stirred so the sauce won't stick. The population needs to gel.

I think that the countless threads like this one here, and others in freeperville, are really evidence of the problem we need to overcome in order to accomplish a fair god-damned election: Partisanship.

We must work to remove the party from it, and then we will have a true grass roots movement. Make it about the country they are giving thier kids and grandbabies. More and more people who witnessed first-hand the last rise of a truely formidable fascist state are dying off. Those that remain must be encouraged to stand up and testify. Explain that this isn't what thier friends died at such a tender age for on the beaches of Normandy, Iwo Jima, Anzio, Ardenn.

Have you ever walked a National Cemetary? Have you thanked these people personally? Where I was raised, this happened every Memorial Day. We had a parade, and grades 3-9 marched to the local cemetaries to place flowers on soldier's final slumber. I'm a little strange, it kinda stuck with me. I don't march with flowers anymore, but, I do frequent battlefields when I have the chance. There is an energy there. I have thanked soldiers Buried in Gettyburg Pa., Arlington Va., Gulfport Ms., and other places I have forgotten.

I remember an old saying from back in the Tammy-Faye days. The moral majority is neither. These people need a reason to stand up. Fear of shame is a powerful motivator, because in the end, Your legacy is all that remains.

My question to them is "Is this to be your legacy?"

Unsure of the power in this approach? Near the end of thier lives, most of the robber barons realized this and became very philanthropic. Especially Carnegie. How many public libraries did he build?

-Hoot