intentional ignorance.

nothing you can do.

According to politicalcompass.org's test, I'm southwest of Ghandi!! An extreme left wing libertarian, if such a creature exists... Didn't realize I was libertarian...

I always get that I was brainwashed by my college professors (I'm the only female in my family to have gone to college and the only member male or female to have gone on to graduate school) and that I'm an elitist snob b/c I had the audacity to become a lawyer!

This mainly comes from an aunt (who was at the Beck/O'Reilly show where Billo called for the waterboarding of Nancy Pelosi) who I had to stomach call Michelle Obama and Tiger Woods "monkeys" at Christmas dinner. I'm convinced that my liberal-leaning mother was adopted!

So Logan, looks like you have a DFH inside. I have to admit I've looked like that on the outside a few times too.

Been there, done that.....you couldn't have covered this any better. I wonder how many of us "hippies" have dealt with this exact same bs!

debating strategy Logan. You're smashing the wrong head on the desk. Use theirs.

You can still get an argument that we could have won in Vietnam if only the politicians had let us.

(And not all of them mean by turning the country into a radian chunk of glass.)

Dude, this is the exact situation with my own blue-collar family. I moved from home, got an advanced degree and a job in academia, so now my brother calls me "Ward Churchill" and everything I say is "liberal gobble-de-gook" (sp?). Of course, my brothers and I get along great, and we have our debates with smiles on our faces and honest laughter. Yet in the end, it's the same result: We end up actually agreeing on about 90% of issues, and I somehow remain the oddball radical of the bunch.

For my one brother though, the problem is clearly FOX news. No doubt about that, whatsoever. And "facts" that he gets from that channel are like revelation from God--no matter how many studies, truths, or counter-arguments I can provide, he still buys it hook, line, and sinker. We just have to drop it after a certain amount of time because it just gets tiring.

Are you saying you're Tommy Chong on the inside?

The inherent problem in being and staying well educated is that it requires an effort that most people simply lack the patience for. They want quick, fast-food drive up info bites that don't bother them with challenges of critical thinking. Thus we have the quick and easy mindset parroting back talking points they've committed to rote memorization - it was less arduous. It's not that people can't understand plain empirical, factual logic, it's that they're lazy. The irony of course is that we now live in an age where reasonably accurate information is literally at our fingertips.

Now add to this that most people in this mentality are prone to form strong ego-investments in their beliefs. Ego-investments are beliefs that we identify with so firmly that they become part of our own personalities. So to attack the belief is to literally attack the person.

And finally, set all of this in a mutually reinforced environment of a "team mentality", where polarized factions of like minded individuals find a sense of belonging to a group. It's like rooting for a team that finally wins a game or stays on top, but then flails to the opposing team. They hate the opposition even more because they were accustomed to that prior dominance.

so much correction needs to occur.

I was trying to explain to someone the other day about how our medical insurance and industry is owned by basically five corporations: Aetna, Cigna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente and United, and they they're dealing Wall Street stocks where their profitability is determined by the Medical Loss Ratio, and the guy just smirked and asked, "What blog did you read that from?"

Almost all my in-laws are republican and as one couple described themselves, "We are good Republicans." By that they meant they carry the Republican line all the way, no matter what it is. This explains why I will try to do anything even semi-legal to get out of having to go to their houses for Thanksgiving.

Funny, today we received a fancy little campaign folder from a man who is running for re-election to the US House of Reps. This fancy little number folds out into six pages and not once is the word "Republican" mentioned anywhere on any page.

The 3 Rs: Race, Religion, and Revenue. It is far easier for these people to think about themselves than to think about others. Especially when they are being told what to think.

This is the easiest way for me to understand it.

The Republican Zone

It's probably good that my father died years ago because I think seeing a black man as president would have killed him anyway. I grew up in a world class racist family. I can't even repeat what my father said the day MLK was murdered.

Somewhere along the way as a fairly young kid, I started thinking about what was accepted as normal speech around our house and it began to bother me. I am so thankful for what ever that little thing was that triggered my thinking.

So they don't have to be around parents and family who are on "the other side of the border"

Friends? Real friends are hard to find.

It gets to be infuriating. But I can't find a one of them here that doesn't worship at the channel of fox. I tried for nearly an hour to make sense of the things they were saying. But is was all a disconected repeat of every stupid sound bite every idiot on fox had said in the last six months. After about an hour I ended up telling one guy he should pull his head out of his ass and see the real world. Then a few minutes later when one of them was telling me I was a socialist I ended up telling the whole bunch of them that I thought they were all sick and needed to get some help. That indeed they had proven that republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness!

I wrote an Op-ed piece a while back reclaiming the name Hippie as something powerful that represents positive change for our world. In the very same way that the term 'liberal' was used as a curse starting during the Reagan years, I feel we need to be stronger than ever in reclaiming these labels as the definition of greater social good for all.

For the past decade we have produced a national PBS cooking, travel and lifestyle television series called "HippyGourmet." The series is our way of giving back healthy, sustainable recipes for families wanting to lead better lives.

Proud to be a Liberal Hippie

"please give examples of what makes me, or anyone, "left wing." The only thing they could come up with was deficits!"

My mother generally goes with the Glenn Beckish "THEY WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO TAKE EVERYTHING OVER" anti-health care bent and thinks that getting rid of taxes will improve the economy. Anything other than those views is "leftist".

Even though the media is helpful in making anything "liberal" sound like a dangerous option, when was the last time a conservative party did something truly good for this country?

Oh, and I just heard that Palin thinks the tea baggers and the republican party should merge. You go, Sarah!

Just reply,

Yes I am LEFT, because Left is right.

The problem with your family is mental atrophy. Having gone for decades without thinking for themselves, their minds have turned to mush. They don't know how to fact check, do research, or think critically.
If you really want to help them, you're going to have to make them work. Challenge them when they spout some idiotic talking point. Make them cite (reputable) sources. Make them rephrase their statements in their own words, and force them to explain their logic in their own words.
It's going to take a lot of work, but if you can get them through Remedial Civics, they might come around...

Hatred and demonization are the hallmarks of fascism and fanaticism. Although it is no longer fashionable to use the word "propaganda" or to point out the striking parallels between Joseph Goebbels and Karl Rove, they are there for all to see.

The right wing "Don't need your stinking reality!" And are happy to be divorced for reality. Their world view is hermetically sealed today. The right wing-media machine, exemplified by Fox News, now permits these people to reinforce their prejudices and magical words, like "liberal" and "conservative", the gun-worshiping thirst to use of violence against liberals and other political opponents, 24/7, through talk radio, Fox News, and the right-wing internet.

This was not the case in previous generations. Specially since WWII, due to the need to have a strong society working together to defeat a common enemy (first the Axis, then the Russians), society's mass media and general social intercourse would instruct people with ideas that were not mainstream where the mainstream was and where ideas went beyond the bonds of common accepted discourse.

In other words, values or opinions that were too off the table could not be reinforced 24/7 and they might bump their pretty right-wing heads against ideas which they disagreed with or did not understand. If these people continued, they would be shunned as too radical or unserious for the mainstream, which drew a clear distinction. These people would have to accept where their ideas were unacceptable and either conform and drop their ideas, or not progress in the culture. THis was also much easier with the limited choices of 3 TV networks and news and a few newspapers and magazines which required literacy and time. These outlets were also not first and only propaganda and sneering hatred 24/7, like Fox.

Now there is no common culture or purpose. And most of the so-called choices are still run by a handful of much larger companies with more power. A cable channel about food or real estate is not going to tell you what is going on in Haiti. National News and newspapers focus only on what people want to hear, and no longer have the social task to inform or educate, just make more money every quarter for Wall Street. Companies with value are taken apart and resold by Wall Streeters and loaded with debt because these MBAs are out for their bonuses, not to make companies better or even to survive for the long term. There is no other goal in society holding back lesser instincts. The latest news about Tiger Wood's sex problems is really just soft porn disguised as entertainment. Novels don't try to tell the truth about the world or challenge the reader and are no longer a central part of the story society tells about itself or common social discourse. The previous center of the culture, the language of the 20th century, feature films, used to be the center. But films are longer a medium which tells important stories about where and who we are and will be. Instead movies are only about cash-cows, about fan-boy "franchises" recreating the same roller coaster ride of thrills lowest common denominator, and repositioning video games for 12 year old boys to pay more money to the same big corporations.

The society is sick and falling apart, and being eaten alive by corporations, Harvard MBAs and greed. And now hatred

In this case, the depravity and sickness comes from these well-funded zealots on the right who want to tear down complexity and repel multi-cultural understanding. In an effort to reduce their fears of ideas and the other, they dream about another society of no grey areas, only black and white, a pure (and white) society which does not exist. Their vision is to remove all complexity and common understanding or other ideas in society with their own anti-intellectual, vicious and jealous fantasy world, combining the nasty patriarchal father god in the bible (which they have not read in the original and do not understand) and a golden conservative past (which never did and never will exist).

Today's conservative vision of Rush, Beck, the teabaggers and the GOP is closest to the idea of the 1,000 year Reich. And their intent in tearing apart America and demonizing and "taking care" of liberals, their enemies, is no less evil.

With republicans, I used to try to have friendly discussions but trying to debate with people using lies and fundamental faulty logic was exhausting. I could never get them to even look at their base beliefs in an honest way. Now I don't start any political discussions. However, if I'm in earshot of anyone laying out clear lies and disinformation as if it was fact spoken by god I return fire and say my position as matter of factly as they do. I don't debate and I don't discuss. It's far too tiring. If they show some interest in really discussing civily then I will let down my guard a bit but otherwise I have no time or energy to debate important issues with fools.

just described any discussion I have in MN-06, Bachmann Land, where I grew up and still have tons of family. I live in MN-04, Betty McCollum, and sandwiched between MN-04 and MN-06 (and MN-06 surrounds us, it's a weird gerimandered district that needs to disappear and horseshoes the Twin Cities to the East, North, and West) is MN-05, Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress. The author is not alone and these people are stoopid - and close-minded, Religilous, and usually bigoted.

Am I the only one who remembers 20 and 30 years ago when:

1. John McCain was considered to be a "Conservative Republican" cut from the true Reagan cloth? Now he's being attacked by his own party as being a RINO.

2. Everybody in the room ghasped when Reagan had the audacity to propose a FLAT TAX RATE. It was considered RADICAL to suggest that the rich should pay the same tax rate as the poor and middle class. Now the rich pay a LOWER tax rate than the poor (via capital gains vs payroll and income taxes). Did anybody ever invision the day that Warren Buffet and Bill Gates would be paying a lower tax than the people who clean their toilets and trim their lawns?

3. CNN was considered to be a right-wing news organization due to their constant covering of wars and decoration of their sets with American flags flapping on every screen. In the good old days patriotism was patriotism, not a tawdry show of trinkets and flag pins. The only people who did things like that were communists, where you could be taken in for questioning if you didn't have a photo of Ho Chi Min on Kim Ill Sung on your wall.

4. Bill Moyers was thought to be a center-right journalist.

Am I the only one that remembers this stuff? I doubt it! But it just goes to show you how far the country has fallen backwards in a very short time.

A few years back, I was talking with my father when I was visiting him in upstate New York, and related the story of my friend who survived the tsunami in Thailand. Here's a piece of his story:

Landgraver said the embassy had offered him and other Americans loans of $100 on the condition that they be repaid within 14 days. He said he had been told a larger loan that would cover his air fare home required vouchers from three people in the United States stating that he could repay the money. But the process he was told could take up to a week.

My father's response was, take care of your damn self. Ask not what your country can do for you. I wanted to ask him if he was ready to return his Social Security checks, but didn't want to pick a fight.

Another time, my Dad's wife was telling me how the media put Obama in the White House, and were totally in his corner. Again I did not pick a fight, just found myself thinking about "palling around with terrorists" and "secret Muslim" and all the other trash that people were being fed in the media. Maybe we had different media-- well, we did, she had Fox News, and I had Crooks and Liars.

so what would they call the average canadian who enjoys universal health care?
perspective is everything and outsiders would consider your right wing family nazis (sorry about that)

Your comments rang a, taped, cowbell. But, it happened for me, during the run up to the election. The two Republican thinkers on Moyer's show would talk to me. Then they would say, ",but..." and go bat-shit crazy. In the end, they fought each other.
I would witness this time and time again, everywhere. I started calling them 'True Believers'. A dead body full of holes, and the smoking gun in hand wasn't enough. There had to be another explanation.

The common hatred of hippies is very interesting, as many young people are quite interested in the 1960s, what happened and what it means. But I also noticed that Ang Lee's last movie about Woodstock did not do very well. They certainly do not want to LOOK at hippies!

Hippie Hatred is especially pernicious at ivy league schools like Harvard. Harvard students are taught to worship power and speaking the language of the rich and powerful is about the only thing these students learn.

I once was told by a girl, who was just graduating from Harvard, that the New York Times was the most truthful paper in the world and she ran her whole life around what it said. I wanted to suggest her parents ask for their tuition money back because she obviously did not learn a thing!

Obama as you know was a rather conservative figure at Harvard Law School. He learned to kiss up to right-wingers there.

I always found, at that other college down the street, students were more interesting. Students from MIT seem be generally more curious and somewhat more open minded. I always wondered why.

I've always put this down to: Students from Harvard worship power. While students from MIT worship science as power. But at least there is some rigor in the scientific process, which leads students to conform with reality a tiny bit more.

of my own family. Both parents college educated music teachers, 2 older sisters both college educated in the medical field, myself a Masters degree in music and professional working musician, yet I'm the only liberal in the family. My oldest sister was warning me at Christmas to get guns and learn to defend myself for the upcoming revolution - she's gone 'round the teabagger bend. While my folks finally admitted that perhaps, just perhaps Bush may have made some errors, they still see Obama and the Democrats as socialist marxist commie bastards.

What bothers me most is that I was raised by my folks to be very open and tolerant of other people's views. There was NEVER any hint of racism in our family, and had there been my mouth woulda been washed out with soap fast enough to make my head spin. Yet they still cling to their conservative values, and supported McCain and thought Palin was the answer to everything. Fortunately only one sister went the way of crazy evangelical and she's pretty cool about accepting the fact that the rest of us don't agree with her religious views. But the fact that my folks raised me with the values they hold dear, of decency, honesty, integrity, hard work ethic, and then turn around and support the Republican party when it screws them blind.....it just boggles my mind.

We agree to disagree. I love my family, even the wacko teabagger sister. But God help me to get them to see the truth in front of their very eyes. They refuse. They simply refuse. In their mind, if it's Democratic policy, it's bad - period. There is no discussion. It's like having a calculus professor who refuses to believe that 2+2 really does NOT equal 5.

I don't really communicate much at all with my relatives anymore because of situations like you just described. Actually, in my family, a Texas bunch some of whom are actually friends of the vile Dick Armey and of about the same level of intelligence, we would never get as far into conversation about such issues as you did with yours. And their response to anything political talked about would be, "You just think you're better than everybody else!"

And these aren't the "working class rednecks" some here are suggesting make up the right wing. One is an oil company executive, others are doctors, others architects, but all are Republican/Libertarian. They present themselves in a very civil fashion for the most part, kind of like Laura Bush or Ron Paul, but spend a lot of their time plotting against people and voting against social services, public education, etc. They even hire lawyers to sue each other when a dead relative's will isn't to their liking.

I actually get along well with the most outspokenly racist one of them all, who also happens to be the least well-off. Her poverty has given her more of a heart than the others have, and I can even get through to her about her racism. But the ones with money are as impenetrable as your relatives and probably a lot meaner.

I have the same thing in my family , I figured it out some time ago that it is useless to even have a conversation in regards to politics with these Neanderthals .These idiots listen to Limbaugh all day every day and think that all the MSM is run by left wing radicals , they don't have TV so I don't know what they think about Fox , I would imagine Fox would be a big hit with them , I'm sure they listen to Beck on the radio . Anyway these morons are like brainwashed cult members ,in fact I have come to the conclusion that they are , all of them , they don't let facts , the truth , logic or reason throw them off , they are Republicans , period , Republicans are the good guys the Dems are evil and no matter how absurd what ever a right wing whack job like Limbaugh says it's the gospel truth . Mind boggling but this is how they are . Take my advice , don't waste your time , you'll only walk away ... your blood pressure high ,totally exasperated , your head spinning .

And you'll be much SANER.

Believe me, there are plenty of intelligent people to fill your life.

I jettisoned all idiots during the Clinton Years.

Guess what. I am getting pretty old and I have no wrinkles or grey hair.

Why? I jettisoned the hard feelings and the frustration, and the utter contact with the insane....

when I jettisoned my right wing relatives and ex friends.

Do you people realize that you're debating about what the "government" should do to those that they have their guns pointed at? If you and those you debate are willing to have each other shot over your disagreements then you're both "statists". If you believe that you should be able to disagree without being shot then you're both "voluntaryists/anarchists" and you really have nothing to debate.
When someone wants to discuss politics with me my only response is that "governments" and it's supporters are murderers. It usually ends the discussion. Rarely do I have to explain that they will murder you if you refuse to obey them because deep down most people realize it.

Today 1/29/2010 on Tweety's show, he interviewed Rep. Mike Pence [R-IN6]

During the segment when they were discussing the "ACROSS THE BOARD TAX-CUTS" Pence said "LET THE GAMES BEGIN"! He seemed to quickly realize what he had just said, then quickly followed up with... we must get serious going forward. He seemed to belatedly feel I should not of said "LET THE GAMES BEGIN". I hope somebody else picks up on that revealing statement ♥

You think you have it rough? Try talking to uber-religious African Americans that think the answer to everything - including politics - is Jesus.

I guess I was naive in taking for granted that a church full of African Americans would automatically support a Black president - but that is NOT the case! In talking to a church member about the health care reform bill(s), she blatantly stated that if someone was sick, they should just go to their church and have someone lay hands on them. At first I thought she was kidding and began to chuckle at her comment - until I realized that she was serious!! The Associate Pastor actually tried to explain to me how capitalism was ordained by Jesus! What?! Really?! Are you serious?!

Needless to say - I don't go there anymore. In fact - I don't go anywhere anymore - I'm almost afraid to. My personal values and beliefs are so out of sinc with everyone else's. I support gay marriage. I want a single-payer health care system. I am pro-choice. I think marijuana should be legalized. I support unions.

But, you know what, I can sleep at night! And I don't care what label someone wants to put on me. Cause it's not what they call you, it's what you answer to!

I started my blog five years ago after undergoing the "separation" that was inevitable regarding a very good friend, who is a Republican. In fact, my very first post on my brand new blog back then was also cross-posted on MyDD, and I got a nom for the Koufax award from MyDD as best post. (nah, didn't win, but as they say, to be nominated .... LOL).

He's recently found my blog and tried to start up new dialogue, but funny, he's a tea party Republican! I can't win for trying, right? What I do find interesting is that his initial response back in 2004/2005 was that he would never read or watch anything left wing or liberal aka main stream media (NYT, CNN, et al.) but that this go around, he's linking to my blogroll/favorite lists of liberal blogs, and reading them. Not sure it's made any difference, cuz he's a fucking T-bagger for damn sake.

I have a very large (huge family) of in-laws. They are all college educated, and all unemployed thanks to Bush and the GOP for the first time in their lives. Somehow, they still manage to convince themselves that democrats are worse than republicans!

I have given up trying to talk with them on any mature logical basis. Now when they start to complain about how screwed they are, I just laugh and say "what you need to do is vote for some more republicans!"

I went to visit a friend who lives in TN (that same town that claims Fred Thompson) and I met her family. Her mom, literally every weekday I was there from morning until night, it went Hannity to Limbaugh to Savage... or something like that - all on the radio. It was those 3, but the order might be wrong. My friend was raised being exposed to this a vast majority of her life, so naturally (we're friends despite our political views) she's fairly conservative, but she just doesn't like to talk about politics anyway. Her mom, on the other hand, was fascinated by this liberal minded guy and was very much wanting to try to make me love those 3 men and their shows. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I used to think Rush's jokes were funny when my dad listened to him sometimes... when I was f-ing 10 years old! Attacking someone's looks or telling a joke about a particular group with an over generalization is HILARIOUS when you're a child, but it shouldn't be when you're an adult.

Anyway, I'm talking to her mom and naturally, when I tell her about how food stamps and other programs helped my family through some tough times growing up, she thinks those are good things, but then she eventually slips into the whole "if you just give people this help, then they're never going to learn to do it for themselves." I tried to explain that food stamps aren't exactly a way of living the high life while being lazy. They help you get by. I also could not get through to her that liberals don't believe that the government should just give us all everything for nothing forever. But she'd always slide back into one of the Limbaugh/Hannity/Savage talking points, like how Liberals really just hate America... except I don't because I respect my father for his service to this country and I don't disrespect the military.

That was it! I felt like FINALLY I could find some common ground because (and I KNOW this won't be popular here) I know of a liberal group that I think is just as much living in a fantasy world as the tea partiers - Code Pink. Yes, their underlying message of peace is wonderful, but seriously, after listening to their protests against the US Military as a whole, they live in a fantasy land. Anyway, I knew my friend found Rob Riggle's report on Code Pink in Berkley, CA on The Daily Show to be just as funny as I did, so I brought that up and tried to find common ground here, but she was having none of it. The Tea Party crowd is standing up for the same values as our founding fathers in her eyes, but Code Pink is just a bunch of Communists. *sigh* What could I do?

I tend to consider myself more liberal minded than anything, but the only thing we ended up really agreeing on is that government needs to just work to find good solutions to problems... then she had to add that the best solutions have come from Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh, etc., etc.

Oh and the BEST statement to come from her during our discussions was "George W. Bush was a liberal." I wish I was kidding about that, but apparently Savage or one of them had a whole segment on a show about how, with the TARP bailout, Bush showed his liberal heart in the end. I didn't even know where to begin to respond to that.

I will say though that her and her family (aside from her grandmother who thinks that because I don't go to church and am liberal, I am a sex-crazed devil worshipper... or something) were all very hospitable towards me. You always hear about southern hospitality and I certainly experienced it there.