WHY IT'S DIFFICULT FOR LIBERALS TO TALK TO CONSERVATIVES

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.

PUSHING THINGS OUT OF ME

I sorta like Facebook.

In my current life, it's most of my social contact during the day. Really.

And I do have a lot of conservative, Republican friends, both on Facebook and off.

And I just can't keep quiet sometimes.

So here is an example.

Brittany Clark Outdoors with Terry Lamothe and 21 others.Like Page

January 22 at 10:30pm ·

Dear Women's March,

As I sit here watching the news, I'm trying to wrap my mind around just what it is you're marching for.

Perhaps, in your mind, there's some "noble cause", perhaps you feel the need to be a "voice", or maybe you are in desperate need of attention (nothing like wearing a vagina hat to accomplish that goal).

I'm trying to understand just what "rights" you think are or will be taken away from you.

As a WOMAN, I understand that I have rights as well as RESPONSIBILITIES.

For instance, I have the right to vote; however, it's MY RESPONSIBILITY to do so.

I have the right to work; however, it's MY RESPONSIBILITY to go to work.

I have the right to birth control; however, it's MY RESPONSIBILITY to purchase and take them and/or use other measures.

I have the right to free speech; however, it's MY RESPONSIBILITY to use my words with caution in order to protect other's rights.

I have the right to assemble; however, it's MY RESPONSIBILITY to assure I'm not damaging other's property in doing so.

You see, there's a difference between "fighting for rights" and shifting RESPONSIBILITY and it seems to me and the majority of the free world, that shifting responsibility is your true goal.

Tell me, what "right' has been or will be taken from you?

Clearly you must have voted....didn't you?

Clearly you assembled.....didn't you?

Clearly your freedom of speech is intact, as you marched around in vagina hats shouting absurdities showing the nation your lack of tact and self respect...but hey, that's your right, you go girl.

Make no mistake about it when I say, YOU DO NOT REPRESENT ME nor the many women I know. 

#notmymarch #MAGA Sereena R Thompson Untamed and Unleashed with Lexi Lou Allie Butler • Huntress Tomi Lahren

So here is my reply:

I have the right to vote; BECAUSE WOMEN VOTE FOR THAT RIGHT.

I have the right to work; WE ARE PROTESTING FOR YOU TO ALSO GET PAID EQUALLY FOR THAT WORK.

I have the right to birth control; DID YOU KNOW THAT MEN GET VIAGRA COVERED BY THEIR MEDICAL INSURANCE?

I have the right to free speech; BECAUSE WOMEN FOUGHT FOR THAT RIGHT.

I have the right to assemble; BECAUSE WOMEN FOUGHT FOR THAT RIGHT.

You see, there's a difference between "fighting for rights" and shifting RESPONSIBILITY – AND NO ONE IS TRYING TO TAKE THAT RESPONSIBILITY FROM YOU, SWEETIE.

I MAY NOT REPRESENT YOU – but I’d like to. If you’re content and happy with lesser pay, lesser opportunities, and can settle happier for the fights WHICH OTHER WOMEN HAVE WON FOR YOU, that’s great.

I want more for myself, my daughter and my granddaughter.

AN OBVIOUS ANSWER TO ABORTION

I honestly can't believe no one has thought of this - or proposed something along these lines.



All you anti-abortion people - the ones who print the helpless fetus photos - who talk about the inhumanity, the cruelty...


Two things, first.

#1 - When you save this little tiny infant from the evil abortion doctor/wire hanger, and the baby is born to an unwed, single young mother.... you then, OBVIOUSLY, are going to BE there to help this mom raise this beautiful child.



#2 - And since the FATHER of this lovely, innocent child is OF COURSE just as involved in the care, treatment and provision of this dear sweet baby.... you then, OBVIOUSLY, are going to do DNA testing, track down who the donor of this sperm cell was, and have THEM help out.



When you have #1 and #2 lined up and working, THEN you can campaign against abortion and call yourself "Pro-Life."

PAIN ALWAYS SEEM PERMANENT

"Pain is an unpleasant feeling that is conveyed to the brain by sensory neurons. The discomfort signals actual or potential injury to the body. 

However, pain is more than a sensation, or the physical awareness of pain; it also includes perception, the subjective interpretation of the discomfort. Perception gives information on the pain's location, intensity, and something about its nature. 

The various conscious and unconscious responses to both sensation and perception, including the emotional response, add further definition to the overall concept of pain."

Pain is something that you have difficulty viewing objectively.

When you are suffering from severe pain, you will do almost anything to stop that pain, to get away from it.

And pain seems like it is always, ALWAYS, going to be with you.

Forever.


And that's one of the best parts of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Every trial, every situation, every painful event, is easier to endure if  you look at it from an eternal perspective.

When you understand life is just a blink in time...

.... it helps.

SNOWFLAKE

From https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/28/snowflake-insult-disdain-young-people :

"Between the immediate aftermath of Brexit and the US presidential election, one insult began to seem inescapable, mostly lobbed from the right to the left: “snowflake.”

"Independent MEP Janice Atkinson, who was expelled from Ukip over allegations of expenses fraud, wrote a piece for the Huffington Post decrying the “wet, teary and quite frankly ludicrous outpouring of grief emails” she had received post-referendum as “snowflake nonsense”. 

"The far-right news site Breitbart, whose executive chairman Stephen Bannon is now Donald Trump’s chief strategist, threw it around with abandon, using it as a scattershot insult against journalists, celebrities and millennials who objected to Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric; its UK site used it last week to criticise a proposed “class liberation officer” at an Oxford college who would provide more support for working-class students."


I can say this:

While a single snowflake might not be much of a threat, a group of them can form blizzards, even avalanches, and overwhelm you.


I'm proud to be called a snowflake. We're gonna overpower you - just wait.

IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS

First of all, this is a LOVELY song by The Barenaked Ladies (ignore the name, they're adorable) - check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCImrmR63JE (not a great video, but it's a good song, trust me).




But let's answer the question - what would you do if you had a million dollars?



I know a few things I wouldn't do.



I wouldn't spend it all on "things."



I've been just about everywhere I've ever wanted to go. I'd love to see England and maybe Alaska, but I've also been inside way too planes for way too much time, and if my grandkids aren't at the end of the trip, it ain't worth it.



I've  never wanted an RV or a boat or a jet airplane.



And we already own our home.



I have two horses.



So I'd like to think that I would "use" the million dollars to help others.



Now the question is - who is going to give that million dollars to see if I'll do it?!?!

SUGAR & SPICE VS PUPPY DOG TAILS

I consider myself as a liberated female.



I raised my two girls to play with Tonka trucks and play with
mud - my son played with dolls.



(He also beheaded all the Barbies in the toy chest, but that's an entire other story....)



But I find myself doing some very, very sexist things.



At church, I serve in a nursery for the 18 month to 3 year olds for almost two hours every Sunday.



And although I keep trying to stop, I keep finding myself TELLING THE GIRLS THEY ARE PRETTY.



I tell the boys THEY ARE SO STRONG.



I automatically hand out the PINK toys to GIRLS.



I give the BOYS the trucks and race cars.



Is it that ingrained in us?!?!

I guess so - I am going to have to work on this harder!

DO YOU NEED TO EARN RESPECT?

re·spect

rəˈspekt/

noun

1. 1.

   a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.
2. 2.

   a particular aspect, point, or detail.

   
   

verb

1. 1.

   

   admire (someone or something) deeply, as a result of their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

   
   

---------------------------------------------------------------

Reading the definition of respect above, doesn't it seem that respect is something that is earned?

A whole lot of people who spent eight years making fun of our president are not demanding that we "show some respect" for the incoming president-elect.

Hmm.... not yet.

HAVING THE LAST WORD

There's an expression - "So I let him have the last word."



"She'll never let me have the last word."



And what I take the expression to mean is that the "last word" means the last attempt to convince the other people of your argument or point.



Wikipedia even says, "Getting the last word means that you win the debate. It also shows your moral superiority. This should convince your opponent that you are correct, and will certainly impress your fellow Wikipedians."



However, there is SOMEONE (who will remain nameless) who MAINTAINS that the expression means LITERALLY the person who SAYS ALOUD THE VERY LAST WORD IN A CONVERSATION!!!




Do you know how difficult it is to NOT say "okay," or "sure" when it is taken as "trying to get the last word in"?!?!

KINDNESS IS NOT KINDNESS WITHOUT LOVE.

"When the apostle Paul says, “Charity suffereth long, and is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4), he’s not just talking about being nice and wearing smiley-face buttons. He’s talking about the core of the disciple’s life. Kindness without love is not kindness at all. It’s patronage, it’s condescension, it’s smugness and superiority. If you have been the recipient of this species of “kindness,” you know that you would much rather do without it. But with love, kindness is refreshment and rejoicing. It strengthens bonds and creates new ones. And it’s a tough, patient virtue, not a frilly, fluffy one."