Can a Real Conservative and a Real Liberal Be Real Friends?
Dear Belladonna Rogers,
For decades, I’ve made the same New Year’s resolutions. They’re the typical “lose weight,” “get a flatter stomach,” and “be a better person,” but there’s one I particularly want to achieve next year: to be more accepting of the failings of others.
I’m very judgmental, and I’d like to learn how to be more understanding. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever tolerate total jerks, but I find myself annoyed with average-to-good people with human flaws, especially if they’re leftists. I don’t want to feel like a hypocrite liking a liberal whose views I believe are mistaken. I’m able to express my political views affably, but don’t want to compromise my core values. That’s my dilemma.
Flummoxed in Framingham, Massachusetts
Dear Flummoxed,
You’ve already taken the first step, which is to acknowledge that you want to become less judgmental. And you add, especially of liberals, suggesting that if you encountered the same flaws in conservatives you’d either give them a pass or be less annoyed.
This, in turn, suggests you’re not happy with having double standards. It sounds as if by being liberals they’ve already used up whatever tolerance you have. They must be better, less flawed than if they were conservatives because they’ve already tried your patience by not agreeing that a smaller government is a better government and that the more the government “helps” citizens, the more it weakens them.
To become a less judgmental person who sees through political differences to the person within, the next step is not to think that politics is the be-all and end-all when you’re with other people. If you make a serious effort to do that — as dubious a suggestion as that may appear — you’ll be able to circulate among non-conservatives as well as to deepen and broaden your current friendships with fellow conservatives.
You ask what can make possible the suspension of your most judgmental tendencies.
Several things can, either singly or in combination:
(1) Finding shared non-political values even in people with opposing political views: One day six years ago I was in the check-out line at Target, behind a young mother with a challengingly rambunctious two-year-old. She was so patient, understanding and gentle with her daughter that I complimented her (yes, a total stranger) on her wonderful manner with her child. She has since become one of my closest friends, despite our realization, early on, that our politics were 180 degrees apart. But our values in terms of mothering and being a loyal friend, and how to treat other people are identical.
(2) Finding biographical similarities, be it a narcissistic parent, a childhood illness, or having studied and loved the same authors while students at schools thousands of miles apart;
(3) Finding a spiritual bond, be it within an organized religion or a similar outlook toward life, death and everything in between;
(4) Finding something you deeply admire in another person’s life or manner of dealing with a challenge; for example, someone who’s able to maintain equanimity, good humor and dignity despite having been dealt a cruel hand, such as a terrible disease or an agonizing injury — physical or psychological;
(5) Sharing a sense of humor and/or a sense of the absurd with another person who appreciates your humor and whose wit you enjoy as well;
(6) Discovering a common enthusiasm for a singer, a car, a Psalm, an actor, writer, a web site, director, play, movie, sports team or activity. A passion for shared interests can make up for a lack of seeing eye-to-eye politically.
With a great majority of the 6.982 billion people now alive, you have something in common that could form the basis of a genuine attachment, anything from a casual acquaintance to a life-changing friendship.
Good article – consistent with the greatest television ad of all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je81VzI3fqE
It seems to me, as a norwegian liberal socialist and an adult, that we should stop hating each other over politics as long as we live like decent people and help our community. We can dislike each other and disagree but all this hating is eating the heart out of modern democracy. In Norway, where I live, we had a ultra-nationalist go crazy and kill a lot of kids + bomb our government, so we just had this national discussion about not hating the people from the right, except for the few really crazy.
The whole point is civitas, to belong to the polis, the nation, the volk. WIch is not ethnic, or geographic or genetic or cultural: Its the amount of people who to any given time tries to be good polite folks from all walks of life. Thats my critiscism of the Ann Coulter right in the US, you have no respect for anyone who disagrees with you. I know liberal veterans and specialists, it just seems stupid.
So. Your country had to have a great national discussion about not hating people on the right side of the political spectrum. And you are lecturing us about tolerance?
Ann Coulter is dating a liberal. … Twit.
Maybe that is why she likes Romney.
It seems to me as a libertarian conservative that you liberal socialists only talk about hatred when a conservative opens his mouth and then you beat us to death with your vitriol, hatred and calls of racism. “Republicans only want you to die” ring any bells?
You people are totalitarians and slavers to the end and I, for one will never befriend one of your kind. We are incompatible peoples and segregation (AHHHH RACIST) would prolly be the best. Dont be a dope, I wasn’t talking about racial segregation.
” . . . as long as we live like decent people and help our community.”
And what in hell does this mean? It defines what makes us different, for your “solutions” have to do with welfare, appeasement, enabling, addiction, titanic debt, and Big Controlling Government — which we on the self-determination Right see as the root of the social and economic problems.
Best advice if you want to be “friends”? Don’t talk religion or politics.
Interesting subject. I find the hard left that don’t like our country to be hard to stomach and I avoid them simply because their vision is tinged with bitterness toward success and the free enterprise system. I have also lost friends because of their global warming religion, a religion based on faith that mankind is (and has to be) the cause of all bad things and only a centralized government run by anti-business types can save the world.
On the other hand, I do have close friends who are liberals but share a similar spiritual viewpoint. We generally avoid political topics and when they do come up I keep my responses short and sweet.
Chas: We all have annoying neighbours. I have old (previous) friends who have become anti-Islam and every time they drink with me they obsess about it. I try to avoid them. But I would help if their house was on fire, or they had a motor breakdown. That’s more or less what I’m talking about, most of the people on both sides of the aisle are decent people who help others. When people start obsessing about politics before community, we get tension and things fall apart.
For us on the left, the challenge is of holding the nation-state together in the face of the new global capitalism, with the derivative bankers and the computer-traders who crush economies just because there is a 0.1 percent profit in it. I don’t consider myself a fascist for saying that this is reality.
Those greedy bankers seeking that .1% profit? They vote Democratic. They support Democrats with their campaign contributions.
Bush’s Treasury Secretary Paulson? He of TARP and bailout fame? Former head of Goldman Sachs? Ran it into the ground? Walked away with tens of millions in pay and bonuses? Democrat!
Oh, and Ben Bernanke, Fed Chairman under Bush and Obama? The guy printing money like mad to loan to the too-big-to-fail banks to float them? He’s a Democrat, too.
The top umpteen recipients of campaign cash from both Fannie and Freddie (essentially huge, mortgage banks) are, every single one of them, Democrats.
You on the Left?!? You’re Democrats. You support the very people and system you decry. What? You think these guys are Republicans? Really? Based on what?!? Monumental ignorance.
I can be friends with Liberals, until they start pouring the ignorant drivel from their mouths. Then I set them straight, and we cease to be friends.
Hi Fnord. You are right on the edge of an important realization. You worry that you might be the fascist for being concerned about the “new global capitalism, with the derivative bankers and the computer-traders who crush economies…”
Actually, you just described fascism, which is to use power to destroy opportunity for all but the self-appointed, elite few.
The reason I mention this is because you mentioned some important points. Nearly all of us are in the same boat together. It’s the global fascists who are the criminal neighbors, who think only about themselves and what they can get for themselves, with no care of how their taking destroys the neighborhood.
Now ask yourself: Could these people take everything more easily if they controlled the government that made the laws saying what is legal and what is not? I ask this not from the tired argument of liberal/conservative is better, but simply from practicality and logic.
FNORD, the issues of predatory capitalism, unregulated derivatives (thanks Clinton, Summers & Robert Rubin: Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000) and currency manipulation at the expense of societies is a broad and complex topic. I think both the right and the left are equally opposed to insider market manipulation and Too Big To Fail banks who get bailed out on the taxpayers dime. I also have very serious doubts as to the real intent of the Group of 30, IMF, BIS and World Bank.
This being said, I am a strong proponent of the free enterprise system and I have never personally witnessed an improvement in societies by an expansion of government in both size and scope as they relate to an individual’s daily existence. My friends on the left feel that government control is the best way to run things. We disagree.
Sowell Disciple, thank you and thank you for posting the link to that commercial. Hilarious! I hope all readers will click on it. Since my comment is so far down the screen from yours, here’s the link you posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je81VzI3fqE
I’m married to an ultra liberal college professor at a very well-known eastern university. Mercifully, we never discuss politics in front of each other, although on the odd occasion when I hear her talking with her mom on the phone, it makes my hair hurt so I have learned to wear headphones. We do have many other mutual interests, but I would be dishonest if I said it’s easy, because it’s not. But such is life.
I am also in a mixed marriage. I am able to overlook my husband’s political views, which come about partly because he was raised by socialist atheist union activist wolves, because I think he is a hottie.
I married a man with parents who were on their own from 4th and 8th grade because of family divorces. They went to work for unions in factories. My husband chose the union after college and observed that they made business profits difficult with all the demands for raises. Luckily his union was one of the more intelligent ones and made concessions during difficult times.
He began voting straight ticket Republican without telling his fellow union members. Three weeks ago my mother in law in her 80′s was telling me Obama was better than any of those republicans. I argued gently with her and ended the phone conversation with a headache. Two weeks ago she said she started reading articles online, because she is sharp and inquisitive. She then called me and told me we have to throw them all out. This was such an amazing transformation. I am now hoping that she can change direction of at least one of her friends.
I see. So you lie down with a “man” who cheers at the death of brave American servicemen and who celebrates the incineration of the Waco babies (since, after all, gun owners have small penises), because he is a “hottie.” Meanwhile, our troops, who watched their friends die from exploding IED’s, come home loveless, alone, and rejected, because no less an authority than the all-knowing Bill Maher says they are not hotties. You are literally sleeping with their enemy.
Have you no shame?
I, too, am married to a hottie, but mine is a liberal. I consider it my contribution to the conservative cause because, fortunately, he’s slowly coming around.
Did you even read what I said?
If you want to contribute to the cause, marry a veteran. They are the ones who deserve your love, not a Fifth Columnist coward who spat on them.
Reductio ad absurdum. And it says more about you than it does about the person who married the lib hottie. And that’s not a good thing, in case you weren’t quite quick enough to catch that.
Last week, in conversation, a liberal mentioned to me that it was ‘safer’ to not be too firm regarding one’s convictions. His companion agreed. She said we should be ‘flexible’ in our convictions.
A liberal is the kind of person who, should you give them your back, will find it a handy place to put a knife.
I too am surrounded by liberals and have many such friends. Increasingly I am finding it hard to tolerate their “head in the sand” and their “what me worry” reaction to the disastrous results of their liberal policies. It is easy to just get along when you are not on the brink. But too many of these air heads who are guided by so called “good intentions” are moving the economy towards a socialist model that destroys jobs, attempting to impose the global warming energy policies which are dramatcially increasing energy costs and wasting billions of tax payer dollars, while at the same time imposing a social agenda that is out of wack with our values and traditonal virtues. In other words time is running out and my patience is wearing thin. Friend or no friend it is getting old. All the while they collect their fat teachers pensions and lecture the rest of us about their newest envir wacko gadget low flow toilet or the new save the snail effort in butt f Africa they are supporting.
Yeh, we’ll watch with jubilation as Romney squeaks the Presidential race and uses his acceptance speech to walk back every conservative position he took in order to get the nomination. Whoopee.
Just kidding! Conservatives push to constrain government to a limited, defined sphere. We try to keep the government, and hence politics, out of our lives, usually by ignoring it as much as we can. Leftists, on the other hand, are always pushing to make government a larger and larger part of life; indeed, to make politics the central fact of life. They make it harder for themselves to ignore the politics of friends and family.
A biology professor found out that her students knew she was a Conservative even though she never talked about politics in her class. That’s how the students knew.
Almost exactly the same thing happened to me. I teach a course in “Peace and Conflict” (yes, I know that’s odd right there: a conservative teaching peace studies). Back in GW Bush’s administration, a campus leader in Republican politics said he knew I was a conservative because, unlike every other philosophy professor he had, I had NOT attacked Bush in the first weeks of class.
I have had friends all across the political spectrum. I’ve had close friends who were self-described socialists.
To make that work requires one vital ingredient: A sense of perspective.
Everyone needs to recognize that political ideology is not everything, and it shouldn’t be one’s entire life.
You can still enjoy movies together, sporting events together, maybe even fall in love–even if you happen to disagree on how the country should be run.
Mary Matalin and James Carville are a good example of that. She’s a conservative Republican, consultant to conservative politicians like Pat Buchanan. James Carville is a Dem attack dog, consultant to Bill Clinton. They got married because they realized there’s more to life than ideology.
Should Obama lose his bid for re-election to a Republican, Carville will say to his wife: “Honey, you guys won this round. I’m disappointed. Oh, well. So, what’s for dinner?”
Conversely, if you see politics in apocalyptic terms–”John Smith must win [or lose] the next election or else our country is doomed”–then you’re going to be too obsessed with that to become close with someone who disagrees with you about that.
Mary Matalin gets along with James Carville because she isn’t a conservative Republican. Rather, he attacks the GOP from the outside, while she acts as a Fifth Columnist on the inside.
I am not so sure. I think they are more like defense attorneys, basically hired guns. They are able to leave their jobs at the door when day is done.
Exactly what I think. Liberals (the “polite” word for socialists and communists) are our enemies. Berating oneself for not making friends with them is as pointless as berating oneself for not making friends with Stalinists, Nazis, and jihadis.
And yes, politics might not be the only thing there is to life, but it is a key part of one’s value system.
If you think there’s no difference between liberals, socialists and communists you need to learn a lot more.
That’s a bit like saying that there’s no difference between Unitarians, Lutherans and New Apostolics.
This lah-deh-dah, kick-the-can, turn-a-blind-eye attitude toward Liberal rot is what got us into this apocalyptic mess. Europe is not an illusion. Neither is our soaring debt. But people on the Left (and Right) don’t want to take this debt problem seriously because it’s not affecting them in the way it is in Greece. And then one day we become Greece, and then it’s too late. Oh, but let’s be tolerant of our Liberal neighbor’s self-destructive attitudes. It’ll all work out on its own.
If people find the friendship more important than winning an argument, it is indeed possible for people of widely different political views and backgrounds to be friends.
My best friend in college (and one of the best friends I’ve ever had) was gay. Needless to say, his political views were to the left of mine, but we had more in common than not, and I never worried about what anyone else thought. I couldn’t care less about him liking men, and he never tried to “convert” me from being straight, as many homophobes seem to fear. He was a kind person and worthy of being a friend on his own merits, and our differences were minor by comparison.
Another friend was a black man who had served in Vietnam and voted Democrat his entire life, and yet another was a single mother attending college on public assistance. My other best friend was a conservative Republican who shared my ideology, and he was also friends with the other three.
The four of us were nearly inseperable.
Unfortunately, two of these friends are no longer with us…but my life is richer for having known them, despite minor differences like politics…which are petty compared to the friendship we all shared. The rest of us keep in contact as best we can to this day.
It’s too bad that so many on both sides of the policial spectrum look upon others with such vitriol and judgementalism. A good friend is a good friend, and a jerk is a jerk…and both sorts come from across the spectrum.
Seems to me all of this hangs upon one’s definitions of “real” and “friend.” It’s not that difficult to remain socially indifferent (nonjudgemental) toward the political, metaphysical, epistomological, ethical, spiritual, persuasions of acquaintances and superficial friends. However, to feel a heartfelt bond with another with whom one cannot begin to share one’s deepest convinctions, or even art appreciations (for one’s art appreciation will depend upon all the above) appears to me to require a level of self-denial that precludes any chance of real friendship. We can admire certain qualities of a great many people, without any possibility of their becoming real friends.
Whether it is possible in a marriage, I’d suppose would require a lengthy test of time to judge. Married couples may be friends and can be friends, ideally should be friends, but friendship is not essential to all successful marriages, for marriages can offer other compensations, which few other relationships can offer. Still, even in marriage, where there are children, it must be hard to be non-judgemental, when one knows one’s spouce is teaching, by word and deed, principles the antithesis of one’s own.
There’s no reason for vitriol and judgementalism between people, but can those who arouse such feelings, or who prompt the need to hide our deepest convictions, be “real friends?” If so, what price friendship!
JR, you bring up some good points. I have watched some marriages with and without children. It seems to me, that it does not work well if both the liberal and the conservative are strong willed people, and have children. People whose politics flow from their fundamental moral and ethical convictions can not get along if they are on opposite ends of the spectrum and have the joint job of imparting two different sets of values to the kids.
It is possible to have a reasonably successful marriage if you are the types that can put political subjects out of bounds or if one of you is not really a true believer.
Most of my observations have been of marriages between conservative/libertarian men and extremely liberal women. That seems to work if the guy does not stand up for himself or his views in order to keep the peace. However, I would not call these marriages “happy” ones. They are a balancing act where these people stay in place because they don’t have a better destination in mind or don’t want to disturb the status quo, or sever their extended relationships with other family members. If they did have a clearly defined alternative, most of them would be gone.
Isab, you are absolutely right. Several years ago, I was engaged to a liberal woman, and I did not stand up for myself for a while. I have to be honest with myself, I think some men (and I was gulity of this) think with their crotch, and they mistakenly buy into the notion that only liberal/Democrat women would be good lovers. At some point, I finally got tired of HER intolerance, and stood up for myslef, at which point she screamed I was trying to change her, then started bad-mouthing me to her friends…
Eventually, after I mercifully got out of the relationship, I decided to stop thinking with only my crotch, and found a good center-right woman who has her head on straight. I think that it’s possible to be friends with a liberal since you don’t necessarily have to be with that person all the time. But in terms of a RELATIONSHIP?… trust me… they are not worth it. Don’t ever get involved with a liberal woman if you’re thinking of marriage, unless you just want to be miserable.
And if you ever get married to a woman who isn’t liberal, and then she changes her mind and BECOMES one?… divorce her. In the long run, you will be much happier. Everyone will be. Trust me.
“they mistakenly buy into the notion that only liberal/Democrat women would be good lovers”
That is because so many liberal women have borderline personality disorder. Crazy in bed can be fun, but in all other aspects of your relationship it can be a living hell.
You were lucky that the woman you were engaged to showed her true colors before you were actually married. You had time and notice to engage your brain and get out relatively unscathed. I have a friend who is a competitive shooter. He got married for the first time at 45. The first thing his new wife (Obama-voter) wanted after marriage was for him to give up shooting because it wasn’t something “she” wanted to do or support He ignored her and is still shooting. They are still married and he is too much of a gentleman to say anything negative about her, but I get the impression that it is not a very happy relationship.
I find it’s hard to be friends with many liberals, not because I’m too judgemental, but because so many of them are so self-righteous and intolerant. Not everyone can live with “let’s agree to disagree” but if you can get over that hump friendships can thrive.
Happy New Year Belladonna! Looking forward to your good advice in 2012.
I am married to a liberal gal with many liberal friends, many of whom I spend time with socially. In fact the other day while at a Christmas party I had to listen to a classic modern day libeal talk about how much she “loves China because they are just so global.” I threw up a little in my mouth but put up with it because I love my wife and a little ideology should not get in the way of a good thing.
Why do only liberals get to speak their mind?
I’m not one to start a political conversation but I’ll be damned if I stay silent and let stupid be the guiding opinion.
In years of nicely pointing out the idiocy, I’ve found that most liberals have learned to restrain and/or tone down the ridiculous talking points when I’m around.
Sorry, but you are asking if it is possible to ride a Brontosaurus. The last real liberal was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and he’s dead.
I can’t imagine that I’ll ever tolerate total jerks, but I find myself annoyed with average-to-good people with human flaws, especially if they’re liberals.
I suppose you have no flaws yourself, right? You’re the first perfect human being to walk the Earth in some 2000 years, right? Seriously, you need to get over yourself. Everyone has flaws including you. If you’re going to be annoyed with average-to-good people with human flaws, then you must accept your own flaws which likely begin with arrogance.
Liberals can be annoying and stupid in so many ways. Sometimes, you just have to agree not to make politics the center of everything in life. Politics is perhaps a necessary evil but it is evil none the less. Don’t let it dictate everything in your life or you’re likely to end up miserable and to make everyone around you miserable, too.
I think it’s important to remember that though these are important issues we’re discussing what we as individuals think about them doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. I remember the cartoon that shows some frazzled dude at his computer in the middle of the night–from the other room comes the voice of his wife, “Please, come to bed!” and he replies, “I can’t…somebody is WRONG on the internet!”
I’ve gone through all the phases of tolerance over the many years of my life trying to ignore the overt, self-destructive stupidity that characterizes the mental disease of Progressivism. After three years of Obama, I no longer feign any empathy for their pathology.
Progressivims is an intellectual void, a cancer destroying history’s one great advancement toward the civil society. How many of you remember that it was only half a century ago that America was still a lot like Andy and Opie’s Mayberry? If you think that’s a bad thing, you are a mindless Progressive and should move on the other comments. But let an old man tell you a simple story of family neglect and child abuse and see if an alarm goes off for you.
The story of neglect and abuse is my family. When I was a young boy in Denver, CO, I was subject to the most egregious neglect and abuse. Here’s just one example. When I and my buddies were 8, 9, 10 we lived for sports, baseball in particular. In the ’50s Denver had only the Denver Bears, a AAA farm team; no Broncos, no Nuggets, No Avalanche, and no other baseball — no Rockies. We’d do anything to get to go to a Denver Bears game. We finally made a deal with our parents — all were in agreement and the neglect and abuse began.
We boys agreed to faithfully complete our many chores and our parents agreed to spring for the $3.00 needed to buy a Bear Cub badge that got us into any and all games for $1 when accompanied by an adult. Wonderful, but the stadium was 15 or 20 miles away in an industrial area, literally on the wrong side of the tracks. Games were played during the day most of the time and our fathers all worked and our moms didn’t care about stupid baseball. But we still went to nearly all the games during the summer break. We’d walk the half-mile to the bus stop. Mom told me to just tell the driver where we were going and he’d tell us when to transfer (for those of you familiar with Denver, we’d transfer on East Colfax!). The transfer bus then took us within a block of the stadium and dropped us in an ethnic neighborhood where everyone seemed to speak only German. Then came the fun part; we needed an adult to get into the game with our badges. So as advised by our parents, we walked up to strange men and told them of our needs. We found unknown men eager to help young boys almost immediately each time. After the game we’d retrace our tracks, switch busses, and ride home to dinner where we’d relate the day’s adventure and our heros’ conquests. I can’t count the times we did this.
By today’s standards, two of the lovingest parents you’d ever meet would be counted as scoundrels and I and my sister would have been shipped off to foster care. The difference between today and sixty some years ago is the cancer called Progressivism. Andy of Mayberry then represented a good portion of America just as Jersey Shore does today. My first “adventures” in love (the Drive-In theater) I was flying completely blind. Female anatomy was as incomprehensible as quantum physics. Is my 10 year old grandson better off when he starts a report on woodland creatures by typing “beaver” into his browser? My wife and I wouldn’t trade our fumbling those many years ago for the filth that has already hardened our grandkids to believe sex and love starts with Girls Gone Wild. Would you? Do you? If you do, thank the next Progressive you refuse to judge.
I will not tolerate this disease, or those inflicted with it, another minute in my presence. There is no room for compromise and tolerance. Why do we compromise with those who are too stupid to see they are killing even themselves as they “save” everybody else? America and Progressivism are polar opposite ideas; they have no common ground other than an apparent suicide pact. I refuse to supply any more poison for the potion.
I am a proudly judgmental person. Making judgments about what is right and wrong is how we navigate through our lives. We are a judgmental people from our inception — we are a Judeo/Christian nation; how do you get more judgmental than that? But it is a positive thing, not a negative. Take the religion out of Judeo/Christian and you still have the essence — thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not . . .. What you shall do is make judgments about right and wrong because you know the difference. You are not a cultural relativist; you are an intelligent human being who understands the difference between equal justice and social justice.
“Judgmental” became a bad word, because Progressivism rests on the destruction, the “fundamental transformation” of America, and if we stick to what we know is right, if we are brave enough to pass judgment on what’s right and wrong, right still wins and Progressives can’t tolerate that. You may pity them for being so damn stupid; I choose disdain instead because my kids and grandkids think my parents were neglectful and abusive.
The old chliche–liberals love humanity but hate people.
OneOldMan: I’m surprised you consider yourself judgmental; let me explain why. You assume that, absent evidence to the contrary, that most people are trustworthy enough that children can walk freely among them. The feminist inspired left, though, has pushed the notion that males are all basically child predators unless proven innocent. You assume that children need proper guidance through role models, but that they can basically figure things out, even sex, by themselves. The left assumes that without state sponsored sex education, children will be horribly sexually repressed by their Christian parents.
The difference is that you use your judgement, experience and the evidence before you to guide your individual decisions. The left routinely judges entire swaths of the population as racists, perverts, religious fanatics or idiots based on whatever the talking point of the day is. And especially, they use that sanctimonious garbage to silence dissent. “That Tea Party, they claim it’s about excessive government, but there’s an ‘undercurrent’ of racism, and they use racist code words. You don’t want to listen to them, or people might start to think you’re racist!”
So, I wouldn’t be so hasty to surrender the mantle of tolerance to the left. The historical record is that they’re anything but tolerant; and as for their present behavior, just ask a black conservative.
OneOldMan, preach it. I grew up in the 70′s and early 80′s. My parents were still able to be neglectful and abusive then too. I feel terrible for my (and any) young kids today. While I try to let mine just be kids, the entirety of the social infrastructure around them says “no way”.
I often take my youngsters to a kid’s “museum” here in Raleigh. Basically it’s giant, two-story indoor play area. When we go I bring a book and let my kids explore and play on their own, or with new friends they make. Unfortunately, I am the exception. Most of the rest of the parents shadow their kids constantly parroting “good job, good job” over every little thing they do. It’s disgusting. For every “good job” I hear I feel we take one step back as a functioning society.
Thanks for nothing, progressives!
The next time some Liberal/Progressive accuses you of being intolerant, insist that you are as tolerant as anyone else, that you tolerate everything you find tolerable, and that you are intolerant of things you find intolerable, and that since he, of course, IS supremely tolerant, he surely won’t hold your behavior against you.
I think that we are obliged to retain our composure when liberals spout off, as they are wont to do, and if their provocations become too much we have to refute their arguments as logically and civilly as possible. There is one thing I absolutely won’t tolerate and that’s a liberal calling a person a ‘racist’ when that person obviously isn’t. That accusation is a conversation stopper and a friendship ender. No contact is possible after that.
“It sounds as if by being liberals they’ve already used up whatever tolerance you have”
Sounds good to me.
Yep. I agree.
Befriending a liberal would be like befriending a KKK member or a muslim. Being tolerant of evil is not a decent thing to practice.
I’ve been finding this topic interesting, and glad they are appearing. I think you can have relationships with socialists but for me there is an undercurrent of a lack of respect and distrust- their view of human nature is so off and historically they are the people who say, ‘I just didn’t know…’ and their views are ultimately dangerous. So, I believe you can judge them for their political stances while acknowledging their good points/actions/personality (as a Christian their worth as an individual regardless) and expect the same from them- if they don’t, they are not your friend and better to know it. Also, once again people write that they don’t speak up to keep the peace, whatever. Quit caring if they blow a gasket and let them do it. Make it known you are a conservative/libertarian and quit being so cowardly or ‘non-controversial’ and continuously on the defense. It doesn’t have to be lengthy- usually all it takes is something like, ‘I disdain environmentalism’. And their mouths just hang open.
there are many on the left who are actually just deluded conservatives. they say liberal things support liberal things unless their possessions (money) are involved.
but a true liberal will sell out a conservative while it is less likely that a true conservative will sell out anyone.
…guess who wins in the end!
The answer is no. Next subject. By the way, nice moniker Cabeza de Vaca, ‘head of a cow’.
Well said, OneOldMan. Today, when you make a reasoned and firm moral judgment, you invariably get a hostile response from many people that, well even the Bible says “judge not lest ye be judged.” Yet Jesus in the New Testament does not say, “don’t judge.” Human beings would not survive very long if they didn’t use judgment on a daily basis.
And yes, I remember parts of America from my childhood that were like Mayberry. And my childhood was very much like “Leave It to Beaver,” and my parents were very much like Ward and June Cleaver. No matter how many people today make snide remarks about old TV programs like that, those programs did portray many truths from the times when they were made.
And not only has relativism and progressivism destroyed morality, but they have also destroyed many other good things about American culture. A while back, I was cleaning out my grandparents’ attic, and I came across stacks of Saturday Evening Post magazines from the 1950′s and early 1960′s. For a magazine that was published for the masses, its quality was astonishingly high compared to the trash and the dumbed-down publications that dominate today’s popular literature.
Yes, mutual respect and not engaging in overheated rhetoric go a long way when politics is being discussed in “mixed” company.
In my experience I can and do have liberal friends. They are of the old style liberal variety and are tolerant people. But, friends of mine of the far left type are no longer friends. I just don’t want to be exposed to the pollution. Life is too short. Unfortunately a lot of my family members are far left. I have as little to do with them as possible and refuse to talk politics with them. Problem solved.
I remember reading an essay by David Horowitz (linked through Front Page Magazine) in which David noted;
A Liberal is an American with a point of view that differs from a Conservative.
A Leftist is an Anti-American with an agenda to which he will subordinate anything and everything.
The trouble is that Liberals do not understand that Leftists are nothing like them and will gladly accept them into the fold.
That is a paraphrase as I am no longer able to locate the essay from which that was taken.
I think his distinction explains a lot, however.
jd
True, “liberal” is a great old word meaning tolerant and open minded; hardly words that come to mind when describing leftists. But then neither are they actually “progressive” – a word one may use to describe a successful entrepreneur or inventor, but hardly someone wedded to a system which returns countries to the dark ages. What they are experts at is attaching labels to themselves which obscure their true nature.
You mean like “The Affordable Healthcare Act” or “The Fairness Doctrine”? How about “unemployment checks create jobs”? No deception in any of this, right?
I can be friends with liberals, as long as they don’t insist on discussing politics with me. “Religion and politics”, as the saying goes.
I would never consider marrying a liberal woman, however. I am not having children with someone who is that harebrained and who has the ideology of the left. You can’t depend on them.
You have to realize that dealing with liberals is exactly the same as dealing with thieves. They both do the same thing but the thieves are more honorable in that they do their thieving themselves and in general will admit what they do is wrong. A liberal will have someone else take everything you have by force and then look down on what is left of you while they preen about how morally superior they are.
This is why whether they are loved ones or not it is not possible to think or feel about them the same as normal, decent people. That is the truth of it whether anyone wants to admit it or not. And frankly there should be a social sanction for anyone who is of a socialist mindset just as there is for any other sort of criminal. No society can survive for long when it is based on criminal behavior or where such behavior is seen as a virtue. This is not something about which men of good will can differ.
Why would you want to be friends with someone who, sincerely, and deep in their hearts, rejects the notion that you have rights as an individual. A person who embraces the idea of sacrificing anyone ( INCLUDING YOU)
“Why would you want to be friends with someone who, sincerely, and deep in their hearts, rejects the notion that you have rights as an individual. ”
Um, you may as well ask why I would want to be friends with any Christians, whose beliefs lead them to believe that I’ll end up hell.
Regardless, I’m friends with many Christians and many liberals. As others have noted, if you let politics be your guide in every facet of existence, you’ll end up one of those nutters with a bumper full of lame stickers, a mouth full of foam, and no friends.
Most liberals (and indeed, most *people*) are well-meaning, good people. They’re just misguided as to how to improve society. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that people who disagree with you are evil, you’ll just end up hurting yourself.
Bottom line: would you be friends with someone who spits on servicemen coming home from the wars?
Would you be friends with someone who compiled lists of gun owners and saved them for violent confiscation when the political atmosphere is right?
Would you marry a woman or a man who has group sex with all the members of their political group?
Would you be friends with someone who supports dragging pregnant women off for mandatory abortions?
If your answer to any one of the above is no, you cannot be friends with a Leftist.
Some of you may find it hard to believe, but not all soldiers are conservative. Many brave liberals served and have served all over NATO. Gimme a break with the spitting on the troops thing, except for extremists. Thats the left version of spitting on muslims/jews/gypsies/ that the right wing has as a fringe element. Most of us are adults in an adult world, but we think social democracy and a stronger state in *certain areas* is a good idea to retain tools in the face of big new global capitalism. There we disagree, obviously. But we do not want to force children to watch porn, there I am very conservative etc, but with the internets it is here to stay.
We shouldnt hate each other over political differences, its just too stupid as long as we live like good people. And each to his own.
” . . . in the face of big new global capitalism.”
Ah, we’ve identified the One True Evil in the world. Or is it Big New Global Government where you have little or nothing to say about what you do with your life?
You wouldn’t have some personal grudge against a former boss/employer, would you? Or maybe you just can’t/don’t want to compete and need someone to take care of you.
I might add that the current conservative intelligentsia is part of the problem, rather than the solution.
I’m not just talking about Leftist infiltrators like Frum and Brooks either. Mark Steyn and Glenn Beck weep publicly for the death of America, yet neither will lift a hand to save it by what we all know, deep down, we must do: specifically, the execution of virtually all of the Left cabal in America. Kill a few hundred thousand active traitors–who are also vile degenerates in their personal lives, and absolute parasites economically–and you have a regenerated America with Fifties social values and 2011 technology. You literally have Tom Swift-type lives, for the relatively small price of a few hundred thousand low-lifes.
So let’s stop weeping about what the Left will do to America, because Glenn Beck lacks the testes to stop them, and instead start building a great new America over the dead bodies of the Left.
I am a teacher, and I am on a team of teachers with one very liberal member. We get along fairly well, but at times she does not know what to make of me because she has never, she admits, ever actually worked or spent any time with a conservative. I am quite well-versed in my political views (Thank you, Dad and National Review) while her views and info have not advanced since leaving college 20+ years ago. When she expresses some lefty notion I am able to come back quickly with the conservative angle, and she is left speechless and falls back on, “Well, uh, that’s what a Republican would say.”
Who are you hanging out with Ken..?? put the gun down and get help.
As far as this article, if politics is the guiding force in your life, its time to (re)examine priorities.
Ken may well be a Moby.
You can’t choose your relatives, but you can your “friends”. I have always found that liberal Americans are always less informed about politics, our American History, and our Founding Documents than Conservatives.
We know which of our relatives probably voted for Obama and are Democrats. We never discus politics because we do love them and want only the best for them.
If you REALLY have a choice select friends who are conservative in their life outlook and values. You can be friendly with liberal acquaintances and share an appreciation for many things, just don’t discuss politics. It will only lessen your appreciation of their good points.
If you love them, make them not want to talk politics with you.
I’m not going on any murder spree, if that’s what you’re worried about. One lone killer only hurts the cause. We need a massive acceptance of what is needed to eliminate the Left menace, and then, only then, we need to take control of the legal mechanisms and do what needs to be done.
Well, killing off the opposition is part of the lefts gameplan, always has been. Ayers, you know the guy in whose living room Obama kicked of his political career, advocated killing off about 25 million conservatives. Stalin, Mao, they did it, Chairman obama would too.
Would be nice for the shoe to be on the other foot for once, after all turnabout is fair play.
Here’s hoping someone has the move-on membership list if this country is maneuvered into civil war by the left.
Why don’t you put your thoughts together in a book? We can call it Mein Kampf II. Don’t forget the ovens.
And the lion shall lie down with the lamb. They better bring a fresh lamb in the morning.
I am a New York City conservative swimming in a sea of liberals. most of my friends who i hang out with on a regular basis are liberal. my roommate, a guy I’ve been friends with for half of my life is probably the most liberal of the bunch. We learned a long time ago after a few drunken arguments that we can not discuss politics, so we don’t. We have similar tastes in movies, TV, music so those are the subjects we stick too. Politics imo is something you shouldn’t discuss with friends. Especially when alcohol is being served.
How do the readers address the issue of keeping friendships with Israel bashers, both Jewish and non-Jewish? Liberals & leftist support for Israel has been on the wane. Since 9/11 I’ve seen my Democratic friends creep along into Israel bashing. I’m Jewish and used to be a Democratic only voter. If support for the Democratic party now entails tolerating the ever growing anti-Israel elements within the party, I’m out. (Plus I don’t want the US to become a nanny state.) Good intentioned liberals accept what the deomocratic messenger says, whether it’s from Tom Friedman or Soros, no questions asked. Any pro-Israel message from a conservative is ignored or dismissed.
After 9/11 a friend of 30 years blamed the attacks on Jews/Israelis. Its’ founders were terrorists & so forth. We didn’t talk for several months but I never confronted her. She referred me to the anti-semetic web site, Counterpunch.org for some “factual” information. A year and a half ago, another friend of 30 years handed me the Sunday NYT containing not one but several negative articles about Jews being self serving and not so special, etc. We didn’t talk for a month. Several times I’ve sent articles from Jerusalem Post or Pajamas Media, & the recent Politico article on Soros’ ACP & their influence within the Democratic Party and White House. No response–their silence speaks volumes as they say. These are all college educated “good” people. However, if the price of their friendship means turning the other cheek to their anti-Jewish/anti-Israel sentiments, I don’t think I can continue the “friendship” much longer. They are on the wrong side of history. I still see them but less and less. If they are morally clueless on such an issue, there is no common ground. I assume others must be experiencing similar situations. When or if Israel and/or the US attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, friendships will be strained to say the least.
LAG, I understand your dilemma. I am not Jewish, but my husband and I have the same problem with my father in law, a retired two star general living in a Midwestern state. He claims to not be anti Semitic but traces every problem the US has in the middle east back to our support for Israel.
I don’t buy it, and why people conveniently forget (or never learned) that all the Arab states sided with the Nazis in World War II, astounds me.
My question is; Why do so many Jews still vote for the Democrats? FDR and Truman, and all men of their stature and beliefs are long gone from the modern democratic party.
LAG, you ask important questions, ones that I, too, have encountered — most recently, only last week.
I will try to address them in an upcoming advice column.
Thank you, LAG, for raising these deeply troubling questions, and to Isab for an insightful comment.
Excellent just-posted analysis of how the New York Times’ foreign affairs columnist, Tom Friedman, bashes Israel for a living. Because he can:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/tom-friedman-vs-israel/
As a Liberal trying to work on a relationship with a conservative I find much of the above dialogue creepy and dismissive. How can anyone have a good relationship with someone who hates what they value? And for the record, what you folks are calling “conservative” values, look to me to be not conservative, but radically anti-social. Get with it. Like it or not, we are surrounded by other human beings and are dependent on their good behavior for our own well-being.
Exactly right. I am anti-social to bad behaviour. Which is why I do not make friends with Marxists or those who think “good behavior” is some innate aspect of human beings.
“How can anyone have a good relationship with someone who hates what they value?”
Silly, it’s called love. Love induces temporary blindness that enables the ‘lovie to overlook almost anything the ‘lover does… SEE!
And I mean overlook almost anything,(politics ehh whatever), anything but betrayal. Until the courtship is tempered, gentleman would be wise to stay focused.
“we are surrounded by other human beings and are dependent on their good behavior for our own well-being.”
We are a practicing civilized nation and I appreciate the good behavior of others, but my well being isn’t dependent on it. Practically speaking, that condition begins and ends with me. Spiritually speaking, that condition begins and ends with Christ.
“How can anyone have a good relationship with someone who hates what they value?”
Because you are irresponsible and self-destructive (see abortion, welfare, titanic debt) and not only are you bringing yourself down, you’re taking us with you (see Obama). And that is why I don’t and can’t have a good relationship with you. You are poison. Poisonous relationships are not good, and need to be jettisoned. Even Ms. Rogers will agree with this.
Silly, a real conservative IS a real liberal.
A “Real Liberal” and a “Real Conservative” can be friends, provided no true Scottsmen interferes.
I don’t know why I was reading this carefully and taking notes. I made up my mind long ago (Like 10th grade) that I don’t care what anyone thinks about me, I’m going to be me, take it or leave it.
However, I admit it wouldn’t hurt for me to brush up on P’s & Q’s and the social graces and the ahh…social therapy.
In my own experience, a true liberal and a true conservative can be friends and can even talk about politics because they both care about ideas and making sense of the world. Where it is hard is one or both hold their political views reflexively. If you know where your ideas come from and believe in the reason behind them, not just their rightness, it is a lot easier to deal with opposing views. It is when politics becomes like sports and you are arguing for the home team, not a philosophical construct, that things get personal. Read a bit of Hobbes and Locke and Kant and Hume and Smith and Marx and as you watch the great battles of ideas play out you will be secure enough in your conservatism to know that talking to other people, even with goofy ideas, is not betraying the home team because that is not what it is all about.
G.K.Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw were very dear friend who agreed on absolutely nothing, from politics, religion, down to diet and styles of dress. Yet, the admired each other’s ability and promoted and praised each other’s work, even as they were condemning the ideas expressed.
no.
luckily, I find as life moves on that I tend to have a real selection bias that for the most part (1 good friend raised by hippies) won’t even allow me to be a friend with a liberal. it is not that I choose to avoid them it is simply that I am drawn to goal oriented, ethical, logically driven, non-entitled, non-elitist MEN as good friends (why bother with those who won’t have your “back”?). the other side just doesn’t really value those qualities and most of my new friends (beyond college) come from my working life which is dominated by private sector workers that the liberal ethos simply can’t hack and wants nothing to do with. my wife, who is a teacher, unfortunately is not as lucky…
Married to a lefty, who oddly, has many conservative values: skeptical of Big government; believes in low taxes; sees Unions for the corrupt cartels they are; cherishes personal responsibility; faithful Christian.
That said, she is also skeptical of Big Business and a Moral Majority that she feels seeks to keep women from being equal to men. Also, she reflexively takes up the cause for [oppressed] minorities.
She’s coming around, but we’ve learned to tred very carefully when discussing policy and current events. (And she keeps my heart open to loving my “enemy” so I don’t paint all liberals/Progressives with the same brush.
“That said, she is also skeptical of Big Business and a Moral Majority that she feels seeks to keep women from being equal to men. Also, she reflexively takes up the cause for [oppressed] minorities.”
Like many people she confuses “cause” and “effect” There is no grand conspiracy to keep women and minorities down. Two things primarily keep women “down” in this country. The first is biology. I recognize that there are certain jobs and career fields that I am fundamentally unsuited for, particularly those occupations that require more upper body strength and hand strength than I have. And if there was an ethnic conspiracy in this country, Asians wouldn’t be doing so darn well.
The second thing that keeps women down is other women. Women are other women’s worst enemy in the work place. If you are a woman and your boss is a woman, the less competence that she is, relative to you, the worse it will generally be.
Women tend to react emotionally on a visceral level when they encounter unfairness. When you get old enough to realize that “life is unfair” and deal with it, a lot of these “do gooder” instincts go away, in otherwise intelligent and well educated women.
You’re married to my wife! (Great, now we’ve got her outnumbered.)
For me it couldn’t be more simple. Democrat=criminal. If you’re a Democrat and vocal about it, we’re not going to be friends or even acquaintances because I know that you’re not someone to be trusted in your personal behavior. How do I know this? I know it because you see nothing wrong with electing and supporting those who are thieves, liars and criminals. Anyone who disagrees with that assessment needs only remember Teddy Kennedy’s unfailing Democratic support.
I don’t do business with Democrats if I know their political affiliation and I wouldn’t knowingly have one in my house anymore because I wouldn’t trust them not to steal something. Marry, or even date, one? Not bloody likely!
Oh I do business with democrats/muslims.
I had to search my soul a few years back when an un-indicted co conspirator to 9-11 ( a muslim who ran the local Holy Land, ahem, charity)called me to build a wall for him. I came to the conclusion that taking his money was better than leaving it to him to finance jihad.
So yeah, I will build what the democrat/liberal/muslim want. But I do charge them more .. a lot more. If I walk up and see an obama sticker or those fish with the legs on it, or any other indicator I am dealing with a liberal/progressive nut, I add 50 – 100% to the bid.
You would be surprised how many pay it. I guess they really are not very smart.
A Simple Bricklayer
I live in a state that has had 70 years of one-party Democratic rule. It was hazardous to my career (law) to be outspoken in my political beliefs. My “second” career from which most of my friends are drawn is in the arts. Needless to say, I’ve suffered through decades of listening to utter political nonsense.
I’ve found now, however, one of the few benefits of older age. I am no longer perceived as a dangerous political heretic when I speak my mind about politics. Now I’m just a cranky (lovable? tolerable?) old curmudgeon, who can sometimes persuade others because what I’m saying is demonstrably true thanks to the failed policies of the liberal political classes locally and nationally.
I don’t have any liberal friends, and I don’t want any. I have a loudmouth liberal niece that is sufficient. These people are the enemies of civilization, and I don’t want to be in the predicament of having to choose between a liberal friend or Western Civilization. I will choose the latter every time, knowing that the former wants to foster misery in the name of Equality, always remaining willfully ignorant of the results of liberal/lefty/totalitarian thought. “It will be different this time” is their mindless mantra. I think I’ll puke.
“It will be different this time.” Exactly what Obama supporters think.
Well, Jimmy Stewart (far right) and Henry Fonda (far left) were good friends!
Define “real” for me on this one. A moderate liberal is OK, They’re wrong and misguided and bought into the propaganda but they can still learn, so there is still hope. But the “real” liberals I’ve met are angry bitter people who hate that other people have the freedom to act differently than them. The farthest reaches of the right oftent act like this but you don’t have to go very far left to find this modern puritanism.
I can’t see being friends with a “real” liberal. They want to destroy my country, despise my history, are killing my children’s future when they’re not killing other people’s unborn children. I don’t think it’s “judgmental” to not befriend the people who are apologists for the greatest evils since the third reich and who can comfortably distinguish between definitions of the word “is” and between rape and “rape rape” and still go to sleep at night.
Not be judgmental? The left put the “mental” in the word in overdrive. Yeah – it all sounds so very nice. The only difference is that those on the right try to keep things on a civil level but you never hear a lefty vowing to do the same. Which is why they are winning. They are the enemy pure and simple. And at this point in the dissolution of America, they should only not be tolerated, they should be berated, verbally abused, spat upon, and given notice that worse is yet to come. This article is naive and hopelessly out of touch. We are where we are because we have been too tolerant of the intolerant. Not anymore. Anyone I know with leftist leanings was written off shortly after the stink of Obama began to poison the atmosphere. And good riddance. If you are voting against my better interests and those of most Americans, you are a dolt or a weasel and not worth my time of day. Certainly not a friend.
Betina, could you make your views a little clearer?
I don’t think this column is either naive or “hopelessly out of touch.” It is an advice column. The person who wrote requesting advice was unhappy with his or her own judgmental streak. The columnist discussed ways of being with people with whom the letter-writer disagrees politically. The column didn’t say that anyone — including you — has to be tolerant of anyone they don’t want to tolerate.
If, unlike the advice-seeker, you’re happy with being judgmental, then I wonder why you read the column at all. It doesn’t apply to you. Some people, myself included, are delighted with being judgmental. But the advice-seeker isn’t. Belladonna Rogers is the opposite of naive and she’s about as in-touch as anyone on or off the Web.
I “tolerate” liberals. Isn’t that what they are asking us to do?
Most Conservatives I know tolerate liberals, and liberals are still the most miserable bunch of people I’ve ever been exposed. So obviously, a lack of tolerance isn’t the problem, contrary to politically liberal assertions.
Unfortunately, the last ten years liberals have gone well past asking me to “tolerate” the differences, and now they are demanding that I accept their
inanitydifferences as correct, or else.If you’re going to continually side against my beliefs, and constantly find America and Israel in a bad light, I don’t intend to be your friend.
Heaven forbid anyone side against another’s beliefs…this might require a new nation to be formed, one where people can believe and practice their religion and politics without being spat upon, and threatened with elimination and violence.
the Irony of your own statements reveal everything.
Until I read the comments to this piece, I thought it was liberals who were too intolerant of conservatives to allow most friendships. Wow. I’m disappointed in the quality of comments; things have certainly changed over the years on PJM.
And no, I’m not a liberal, unless you mean in the classical sense.
Too bad people are so bent on having an ideological war with the other side. What happened to reasoned debate and persuasion?
Yeah, and Nevelle Chamberlain thought Hitler could be reasoned with too.
I think the best answer to that question is a thought I often have when listening to someone rant about something or other: “I don’t know who you’re having this conversation with, sir/ma’am, but I don’t think it’s me.”
Or more plainly, most people are responding out of their personal experience to someone who is not themselves a direct cause of that experience, but who triggers the response by virtue of being a safer or impersonal target, or merely being unlucky enough to recall that reaction to the speaker’s mind. It’s not liberal-left readers here and now who provoked these responses; it’s the people in the posters’ pasts who caused this. One of my beliefs about human nature in general is that most of us are always looking for an excuse to resume the last argument we lost and, this time, win it. (I am certainly guilty of this flaw myself, which is why I try not to get into arguments these days.)
It’s easy to dismiss this issue by saying “there are more important things than politics”, and that is true. But the problem is that politics are often based on values, and there isn’t anything more important than that. You can’t avoid being judgemental when you prefer your own values to another’s; the best you can do is find a way to avoid choosing between your values and your relationships as best you can without compromising either. (As a Catholic with an agnostic albeit open-minded wife, and many non-Catholic friends, I am very well aware of this tightrope.)
You can only have reasoned debate when both sides are willing to be civil and reasonable. For the left, that is virtually never the case. They are generally so intolerant of anyone who disagrees with their party line (which is itself a leftist concept) that they literally can’t consider what those people have to say.
I’m a centrist with both liberal and conservative friends, and we all get along just fine. Even when we have little arguments, we act like it never happened afterwards.
I must say, though, that my liberal friends are more annoying about politics and religion, which is probably because my conservative friends are kind of center-right and not as vocal about controversial issues. (This may not be everyone’s experience; I’m not saying this is how all liberals are.) I have this one liberal friend whose perception of American religion is kind of ridiculous. We’re in high school, and there was an assignment in English class in which we had to write a story with the theme “the last remaining book in the world.” He chose the Bible, and he concluded the story with the Bible being buried because it was so evil. “I was originally going to have it burned, but you know Christians. If they read my story, they’ll start a Crusade and kill everyone,” he said. He acted like he was hesitant to tell me about his story because he thought I would turn into a holy warrior or something, basically implying that I’m a potential Crusader. (Hey, sounds like far right-wingers who think all Muslims are potential terrorists/jihadis, eh?)
But judging by the comments on this article from right-wingers, I guess there are certain conservatives I wouldn’t be capable of getting along with.
My wife is more liberal than I am and was horrified when she heard that I was considering voting for Palin. But she is so solid in values, competence, responsibility compassion, etc., that she makes a complete joke of any inference that liberal women cannot be responsible. That said, although she despises Fox, she is not very political, and thinks that internet political chatter is a waste of time. She may have a point there.
“But she is so solid in values, competence, responsibility, compassion . . . ”
Would love to see you define this. If it means she believes in abortion, the rot of welfare, massive debt, and Big Government, your comment is laughable. If she DOESN’T believe in these evils, then she’s a conservative.
It is about what people DO. Are they conscientious, reliable, affectionate, hard-working compassionate, fair, but tough. Parse that.
“That said, although she despises Fox, she is not very political, and thinks that internet political chatter is a waste of time. She may have a point there.”
There are a lot of valid reasons for despising Fox news. For example, Bill O’Reilly and some of the other commentators and newscasters say some stupid, inane things, as do their counterparts on MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC etc. I personally avoid all televised news because there is little substance to any of it.
However, when liberals are asked for reasons why they hate Fox news, the response I usually get is a talking point, namely, “It is the mouthpiece of the Republican Party” and not “fair and balanced.”
To this, I usually respond that if Fox News truly is the mouthpiece of the Republican Party it still wouldn’t be fair considering that all the other networks and NPR are effectively mouthpieces of the Democratic party.
There are many competent and nice people who are not particularly political. They don’t want to invest the time or energy into becoming an informed participant. Your wife may be one of them. But if she doesn’t know how our system of government actually works and what the issues are, I would prefer that she stay completely out of it by not voting.
Too many of these non political people treat their civic duties as id they’re still in high school and voting for the “Prom King” These voters, who don’t pay enough attention to the issues, are the reason an attractive man, but a totally unsuited community organizer, who promised everyone “hope” and “change” is President of the United States.
Amen.
She knows that taxes have paid her salary as a schoolteacher, a salary she had to have in her first marriage to support four children and a deadbeat husband. Many support government and taxes, because it is in their interest to do so. One votes to advance one’s interests.
My larger problem is those who “hustle” in government jobs by doubling up on pensions etc. Conservatives love hustlers, and I guess, the impulse to hustle, but then often WE get hustled.
“Conservatives love hustlers.”
Ah, the high and mighty Lefty bigot betrays himself. “You know how all those conservatives are. They watch Fox News.”
You know WHY we conservatives think that Lefties are poison (not just that they are). So tell us why Fox News is so evil, other than they’re not “fair and balanced” or because “they’re the mouthpiece for the Republican Party.” Lay it on us, oh wise one. What is it about Republicans that you despise?
Ask her, not me.
Made me laugh:
“Too many of these non political people treat their civic duties as id they’re still in high school and voting for the “Prom King””
The vision of Barack Obama as ultimate Prom King/Class President is right on the money. Thank you for this gift: the vanity election of an empty suit.
Obama was elected by people who voted for him because he was black and not George Bush. But that can’t be racist, can it?
I’ve enjoyed this thread very much. The *cause* for the increase in ideological intolerance, however, has not been addressed. Driving us apart is technology. The ability to essentially program your own news has created very loud ideological echo-chambers. As someone on another thread on another site recently wrote: “Echo-chambers require tuning so that only the desired noise can be heard.” So since the left dominates the media their echo-chamber is the largest; it is becoming more sharply tuned in reaction to our conservative echo-chambers. The result is what I’ve experienced for the first time in my life (I’m 54): speaking to people from another planet.
I am friends with a blue dog Democrat whose car is plastered with political stickers. We go out for drinks on Friday nights. I never bring up politics. He often does. Several weeks ago he made some comments about Herman Cain’s alleged love life. My reply: and you voted for Bill Clinton. I then expressed my opinion that this was an example of Chicago sleaze politics(the accuser lived in the same building as Axelrod in Chicago) such as what happened to Obama’s opponents in 2004. As another example of Chicago sleaze politics, I brought up how Obama, who presented himself as giving a voice to the voiceless got ALL his opponents off the primary ballot in his initial campaign for the Illinois Senate. Which my friend didn’t know about. After such an onslaught, he walked off, and while we have seen each other several times, since, he hasn’t brought up politics again.
I actually know a guy who is a Demoncrat, I tried to be friends with him but couldn’t, it is just way to hard to talk with his liberal mindset, he just finds it impossible to see or hear anything that makes sense.
Consevatives are conservative because they have considered many things such as the constitution, capatalism, and the failings of Socialism and facistisam. Being a real conservative is reconizing what works and has worked for the United States.If their is common ground for Liberals and conservativs it will be in the more smaller issues of our daily lives.(not so sure raising kids is smaller but as long as i am not forced by the state to adhere to their view on how to raise kids i thinki am ok).
The agenda of one world order is real. Manny who back the left have said so.(George Sorros) If it serves their purpose to lull us both librials and conservatives alike into dull since of what is going on around us then they can inflict their ill will on us in a much slower way, But the way is just as effective. Be friendly, be fair. Don’t bore into conversations where you will be demonized by those around you. always however be ready with truth. Now i think this is the place where consevatives fail. We say we are constitutionist and haven’t read it. We are for freedom of religion yet we fail to see what damage it would cause if we start having religion as open debate on campus with those who only argue from a point of ignorance. we defend wall street to the point where we fail to see crony capatilism, Many on wall street suport the left withoot hesitation. And they support Republicans who sell out their principles for unearned profits. Don’t ask a Democrat to accept wall street unless you are willing to get that mess cleaned up as well. I was a small businessman and i know how we were regulated to death. Those same regulations make it much easier for them to succeed at the expense of taxpayers. now i can see allthose conservatives saying well those fat cats are the ones responcible for Job creation. Yes many on wall street creat Jobs. They would creat many more jobs if there were not the crazy regulations. I get angered by those who say we should of regulated “Fanny Mae and Fredy Mack. It seems more like we should have reconized that these organizations were regulations put on the banking industry that made many in the banking business reich at the expense of the tax payer. From what i understand the small banks that didn’t get involved with Government backed loans have been doing well. I am not sure of this but have read a few things suggesting that to be the truth. In short clean up wall street in as far as we have crony capatalisim. free up american business. You know not everyone who goes into business is going to succeed that is the price of going into business. Also not everyone who goes into business is a good person. The checks on bad people shouldn’t harm good. The business that can hide behind a bad regulation has an advantage of those that are good but don’t abuse the regulations.
I hope we strive to get along without giving up truth.( and you know what the left might have some truth as well.)
as a liberterian i have conserv and lib friends…i have no problem. what i find incorrect is this mistaken belief that we need to be “less jugemental”. there is nothing wrong with judging and in fact is the foundation of independence! I see no reason to hide my views even if incorrect to my liberal or conservative friends. If i have taken into account all the available information then made a call why should i be ashamed? why hide my beliefs? i would rather let them be known and give my friends the beefit of them or the beefit of having them challenged with new information than hide them for some fear of of offense. Im a grown man with a brain and thoughts altho they are not popular at alot of times but they have their reasons and i let them be known. if we ‘not judge’ and only hang out in the echo chamber then we are as bad as the people we critisize. While i may ‘live and let live’ on alot of things I do not believe in just letting life wash over me and if we are not fit to judge then we are not fit for liberty!
I can be friends with a communist who wishes to destroy capitalism.
I can not be friends with a self deluded, liberal who can not admit that he is particpating in the destruction of capitalism.
Honesty is important to me.
What happened to MORALS and VALUES? The fact that people see themselves through the bifurcated lens of conservative and liberal–acting according to whatever the authority who dictates what those ideologies represent at any particular time–is nonsense. There is something wrong with obessivng over questions like ” omg, I wonder is thus guy/gal is conservative?” or “omg, I wonder if this guy/gal is liberal?” You set yourself up failure if you think like that because you automatically associate the worst traits ( real or perceived) with people who have a differing ideology. Character matters, not ideology. At least most of the time. Obviously there are ideologies that are completely antithetical and diametrically opposed to decency, such as Nazism, for example. But I don’t think liberal or conservative views are so extreme that decent character can’t make up for bad politics. Especially if the person you know isn’t making bad policy based on political views.
Why should one want to become less judgmental? Judging means differentiating. Separating the wheat from the chaff. The more you learn, the more distinctions you’re able to make; the less you learn, the more everything looks like everything else. Is that desirable?
Why, after expending tremendous effort to find answers would one want to surround oneself with bozos who could not care less about knowledge, or whose actions and attitudes work to undermine one’s well-being. Are you that lonely?
Yes, mingle with others to discuss and debate if you must. But if you take your philosophical opponents as friends, you are essentially saying that the differences are irrelevant or inconsequential. If that’s the case, why have opinions at all? Just go along to get along and forget about principles and right action. But then don’t complain if the world no longer makes sense and shows itself to be breaking down on every level for no apparent reason.
When you trade in your mind for lots of “friends,” your own friendship becomes meaningless.
A:
NO! Liberals = anti-Constitutionalists and Conservative = Constitutionalists
belladonna asks an interesting question. You could have asked the same question in the 1860′s. Can abolishonists be friends with those who excuse or support slavery?
Many really nice people support progressive ideas – as I’m sure many really nice people supported slavery. History shows that the result of instituting the progressive ideals of socialism and communism are little different than the outcome of instituting slavery: Elite individuls obtain the power to control the lives and labors of individuals whom they believe to be lesser than themselves. The inevitable result is consistently the loss of individual liberty and mass genocide.
So I guess the question could be paraphrased as: Can supporters of liberty be friends with those who are kind hearted, but support policies, which when implemented, result the theft of individual liberty and mass genocide?
The answer is not as simple as it sounds.
As long as you understand that the Abolitionists would have tended to support the things which condemn. The were fellow travelers with Utopians, suffragists, to the extent that you could say that they were American Progressive Socialists, with the Art Chance distinctions, if you wish.
The new Conservative meme is that people who support liberal social policies are to be condemned, because such things “always” lead to Pol Pot, Stalin, or Mao, supposedly justifying righty outrage and moral huffing and puffing. This “jump” is becoming the coin of the realm around here. To the denizens, it feels like a good club with which to beat the left, but ignores all the stuff which has become embedded in our culture for the last hundred years. But just for the hell of it, let us think about Mao and Ho Chi Minh, who worked for a completely Socialist state and their countries eventually evolved into much more capitalistic entities. What do we learn from that?
And as for Abolitionism, on this date in 1862:
http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=375
Well happy birthday Emacipation Proclamation. Like I said, the answer to these questions are not as simple as you might think. It is impossible to know if things might have been better or worse had slavery been allowed to die a natural death rather than such a violent one.
Many nice people in both the south and north looked the other way and held their tounges over the issue of slavery in an effort to keep friendships and peace at the dinner table.
I’d like to think that I would not have sat silent over the issue of slavery and the human misery it created. That said, there would have been plenty of room for discussion on the best method to promote individual liberty and decrease human suffering beyond the declaration of civil war.
Is it possible to be a nice person and to actively support policies that are KNOWN to result in the loss of liberty and genocide?
Personally, I do want to give consent to progressive policies, such as socialism and communism and the inevitable misery and genocide that they clearly create.