I didn't write this - not one word. But it expresses so well what I am feeling lately.
So here it is.
28 Reasons I’m DONE Talking To Most Of My Conservative
Friends And Family Members
By Tiffany Willis on February 11, 2015
1. You
support revisionist history.
“Why teach our
children at length regarding the horrors of slavery as we have eliminated that curse
from our society? We don’t deny it occurred here or anywhere else in the world,
but, why dwell on a segment of our past that has been corrected? I don’t think
it is appropriate to drag our dirty laundry through our history lessons at
length.”
Because it’s HISTORY. You don’t get to just rewrite history books if it’s
unpleasant. What are you thinking? Shall we rewrite the
Revolutionary War? “A minor disagreement with Great Britain.” How about the
bombing of Pearl Harbor? “A spat with the Japanese.”
2. You
cite Jesus as your reasoning for rejecting marriage equality.
Yet the Bible only mentions homosexuality six times. Six.
Times. 6.
So why is this one of the biggest issues on your agenda?
Why are you putting so much energy and hate into an issue that clearly wasn’t
one of God’s major concerns?
As Christians who are pro-family, why would you deny people
the right to the sanctity of marriage? If marriage strengthens families, why
would you not want everyone to have this, even if you disagree with their choice
of mate?
YOU (we) have destroyed the sanctity of marriage. There is
no possible way that gay marriage can do more harm to marriage than
heterosexuals have done. Yet we seldom hear a sermon bemoaning the divorce rate or
people living together before marriage. Why is that? Because the
pews would be empty.
3. You
use Biblical scripture to excuse yourself from feeding the hungry.
There is nothing you do that makes me more disgusted with
you than your abuse and misuse of 2 Thessalonians 3:10.
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If
any will not work, neither let him eat. 2 Thessalonians 3:10
You are deliberately taking the scripture — ONE VERSE! —
out of context when you use them to justify your own hatred of poor people. And
again, you’re showing your ignorance.
Biblical scholars have pointed out that the author of 2
Thessalonians was referring to Christians who stopped working in anticipation
of Christ’s return.
4. You
lie when you say you value “freedom of religion.”
I had lunch with some conservatives a while back, and the
topic of freedom of religion came up. They expressed concern at the “war on Christianity.”
I cited a recent event that had occurred in which protesters interrupted the
U.S. Senate’s first Hindu-led prayer. The response from my fellow diners?
“Good.”
I don’t know how educated people can be so ignorant.
Seriously. You can’t even see your own contradictions.
5. You
claim God speaks to you and tells you to do things.
Over and over and over, we see right wing nut jobs in the
news saying they’re doing this horrible thing or that horrible thing because
God told them to. This is, to quote the Christian Courier, “a very convenient
method of authenticating what you want to do.”
These are the false prophets that the Bible warns us about,
in my humble opinion. Most of you lack the courage to take a stand against
these idiots even when you know they’re nuts.
6. You
question my faith.
“Christian Left is an oxymoron.”
Oh my, I’ve heard that so much from the right, and believe
it or not, I often hear it from my “friends.” First of all, your questioning of
my faith genuinely means very little to me. What it does is destroy my opinion
of you; I now view you as self-righteous hypocrites.
Recently, I found out that a woman from my church questioned
her teen son for spending time here at my home with my children. I believe her
words were “why would you want to be around someone so liberal.” I’ve never had
a conversation with this lady. We’ve never even made eye contact. But alas, her
comment (and more that she said) has forced me to now see her differently.
7. You
care more about your guns than you do about children.
After the Sandy Hook massacre, and following other similar
tragedies, I asked many of you if you loved your guns more than you do children.
I made the statement of “I’d give up my gun forever if it would bring back even
one of those children.”
I asked you if you’d do the same. You admitted that you
would not.
8. You
get excited about people dying.
You really, really like to see death. And not just to
terrorists. You
love the death penalty. You love war. You love seeing kids like Trayvon Martin
being shot. They deserve it, you say. But his murderer has shown — again and
again — since his acquittal that he is a dangerous person.
9. You
assume that everyone who needs help are losers and parasites who refuse to
work.
Approximately 47 million people receive food stamps, and
most of them are children or the elderly, in addition to people who are
employed. The numbers, from a 2012 USDA report: 45 percent of SNAP recipients
are under 18 years of age. Nine percent are age 60 or older. More than 40
percent live in households with earnings
10.
You weren’t concerned about uninsured people– including me.
Most of you know that when I made the decision to become
self-employed that I would be giving up my employer subsidized health
insurance. I’m 47 years old, and like most people my age, have at one time or
another had preexisting conditions that would cause insurance companies to deny
me a private policy.
I didn’t want a free ride. I was eager to pay for my own
insurance. Obamacare
opened that door for me and millions of other hard-working Americans and
disallows insurance companies from rejecting millions of Americans who were
previously rejected. But without even knowing fully what the
Affordable Care Act is, you chose the path of ignorance. You didn’t care.
12.
You’re liberal in youth, yet grow conservative in age.
I call this the Dead Peter Syndrome in men and/or the
Formerly Hot Syndrome in women. A couple of years ago, a man confronted me on
Facebook about my liberalism. I knew him when I was growing up; he was a friend
of my parents and his children were my playmates. He called me a stupid,
misguided, amoral, liberal. Yes, those were his words. I had one question for
him:
“When I was a little girl, didn’t I sit on your lap while
you smoked a joint and drank beer?”
I’m afraid I burned the bridge of that friendship — and
good riddance.
Similarly, many women who embraced the sexual revolution
are now taking a stance against women’s rights and suggesting that I’m killing
babies with my IUD.
You don’t get to live it up as a young person and then try to take a
moral high ground when you get old and aren’t interested in living anymore.
13.
You don’t want people who disagree with you to vote.
Oh, Gerrymandering, you ugly devil, you. But do we question
why this is so common and seldom questioned by people on the right? It’s
because you, my conservative voter loved ones, agree with it. You think it’s
perfectly acceptable (and necessary) to suppress the vote. It’s for the “good
of the nation.”
I once heard someone tell his wife to not inform her
Democratic friend how and where to vote. “She’ll cancel out your vote.” There
you have it.
15.
You scream about undocumented immigrant children at the border, but you hire
Mexicans to do your dirty work.
I live in Texas. Duh! Every single upper-middle-class or
wealthy person I know has at one time hired cheap labor to do their menial
tasks like home repairs, yard work, housekeeping, and childcare. They actually seek
out Hispanic people because they know that they do good work and that they’ll
work for cheap.
16.
You insist on calling undocumented immigrants “illegals” and “aliens.”
They are human beings. They are undocumented immigrants.
Many of them are children. It really makes me furious to see you deliberately
depersonalizing these human beings who are doing nothing but seeking the
American Dream that you are so proud of. And you do this on purpose. You know
what you’re doing. You’re proud of your very unethical and un-Christian
attitude towards these human beings.
17.
You don’t mind using force against “lesser” groups to get what you want.
Case in point, protesting outside of abortion clinics. Or
protesting at the funerals of gay people. And yeah, I know that is Westboro
Baptist Church and not you, but if you refuse to speak out against them, then
you’re a part of the problem.
18.
You love war, death, and destruction.
And why do you love war, death, and destruction? Because
‘Murica. Because you think this somehow makes us superior. We may be militarily superior, but we are
ethically inferior.
Even when confronted with the lies, now confirmed
officially, that got us into the Iraq war, you don’t care. You like for America
to be the world’s largest terrorist organization and the world’s most
formidable bully.
19.
Speaking of war, you think draft dodging is OK and military service is for the
little people.
Why doesn’t it bother you that Dick Cheney et al are draft
dodgers? Or that Mitt Romney has an entire baseball team of sons and not one of
them served in the military? Or that none of the current generation of Bush
children have served in the military. Let me tell you in one sentence, as was
told to me personally by a wealthy draft dodger:
“Wouldn’t you get out of it if you could?”
Dying for your country is such a noble cause — if you’re
not one of the elite. Right?
20.
You claim to care about the Constitution, but in reality you don’t.
Oh yes, you scream “CONSTITUTION” at the top of your lungs,
but when idiotic Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) recently tried to strip the
Constitution of the 5th and 6th Amendments, where were you? Where was your
outrage? You love the parts of the Constitution that please you personally —
NOT the entire Constitution.
21.
It’s impossible for you to see your privilege.
If you were born into a family and a place that allowed you
to thrive, you’re blessed and fortunate. This isn’t the norm. A lot of success
and stability depends on the structure that we have during our formative years.
The vast majority of young Americans have not had your advantages and I can’t
seem to make you understand that. I’ve stopped trying.
22.
You don’t care about children.
You care about fetuses. Once those fetuses begin to breath
outside the womb, your concern is gone if they’re born into a poor family that
needs help. Or how about poor children who are in school? Most of you want to
do away with free and reduced lunches, for God’s sake. And let’s not even talk
about free breakfasts for kids. What is wrong with you people??? There is no
better investment that we can make as a nation than in the early childhood
health of our children.
23.
You’re greedy and miserable.
You spend more time bemoaning what is being taken from you
that you do in being thankful that you have enough to share.
24.
You think our religion is the only one.
I’m a Christian — a proud follower of the most amazing man
I’ve ever studied. Most of what is good about me comes from the teachings of
Jesus. I love my religion and my Holy Book. I use the Words in Red as a
compass. But who am I to look at other people who feel exactly the same way
about their own religions and judge them? We’re all on this earth doing the
best we can, making the best decisions that we can. And we’re all taking our
best guess. The evidence for and against their religion is no different than
the evidence for and against ours.
25.
You are lazy and you refuse to read.
I provide sources for you that will debunk most of your BS,
or at least help you to see it a little differently. You refuse to read it. You stick to Fox
News, World Net Daily, etc…You refuse to ever entertain another point of view.
26.
Your misfortune is God’s blessing.
When something bad happens to you, you sanctimoniously think it’s
God testing you and making you stronger. When something bad happens to me (or
gay people or atheists or etc…), you think it’s God punishing them. Really?
27.
“Everyone has their lot in life.”
Except you, of course. Well, no…. you do have a lot. Your
lot is to have every privilege and entitlement and make sure your children have
the same.
28.
You think you’re the only one working and paying taxes.
“My tax dollars….” Here’s a clue: you’re not the only one
paying taxes. Liberals pay taxes, too. Just how far do you think your $2,000 a
year in income taxes goes? Or your $10,000, or even your $50,000? No matter how
wealthy you are and how much income tax you pay — and most of those complaining
aren’t paying that much — you’re actually probably paying more for wars (that
you love) than for food stamps for children in poverty.
Thank you, my dear ones, for being sane. For understanding
that things aren’t always black and white. And for disagreeing with me without
belittling my very existence. And for not rubbing midterm losses in my face.
And for never once calling me stupid or amoral for being a liberal.
I've been trying to read the Book of Mormon sequentially, which is something I don't usually do as part of my scripture study. As I've read sequentially, I've been surprised by the amount of scriptures I've encountered that deal with how the disciples of Christ are to treat those who are poor, as well as by the intensity of the content of these scriptures.
