# My best friend drank the the proverbial Kool-aid... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 17, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752 "2009-08-17T17:36:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/1 "2009-08-17T17:36:40Z")
I have a friend that got engaged a year ago. He’s getting married this October. Him and I used to have friendly debates, but I think overall we had pretty similar opinions on most things. The family he is marrying into is conservative and quite wealthy. He gets taken out on vacations and gets lavish gifts from his fiancee thanks to her rich daddy (she just finished college, parents support her). Since up until now, he’s spent the better part of seven years supporting/bailing out his worthless flake of a roomate/ex girlfriend, Im not jealous about the good life he’s got now, if anything I think he’s earned it given what he had to deal with in the past. What does bother me, though, is his very sudden shift in attitude. He’s suddenly become incredibly Libertarian, anti-regulation, anti-union (and given that I’m in a union that I fairly like, pisses me off :mad: ) just all-round fiscally and socially conservative. He whines about taxes and thinks its ‘unfair’ that someone that makes 100k+ has to pay so much in taxes. Its rather baffling; he only started acting like this once things got serious between him and his fiancee, but she herself _avoids_ debates, particularly political ones. So its weird to think he got it from her, unless their conversations in private are very different than her conversations with other people. Her parents are wealthy because her dad co-leads a startup that actually really took off and is very profitible in the midst of our recession. I could suppose my friend basically drank their family’s kool-aid in that regard, and became assimilated into their attitudes- money-driven, materialistic, hypercompetitive, anybody unable to pull their weight is dragging everyone down and must be discarded, etc. What probably bugs me the most about it is that him and I are in a similar state in our lives- we’re both in career-oriented jobs, both make about the same amount of money ($70,000/year) and have a similar amount of assets. He has more debt than I, though on the flip side he’s got considerably more retirement saved up so far since he’s been working full-time much longer than I have. So the whole bitching about taxes he himself doesn’t have to pay gets really stupid. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/2 "2009-08-17T17:44:44Z")
When you’re very young, you sort of inherit your parents’ politics, as it’s all you know. Then you become a late-teenager early-twentysomething and you develop your own politics and want to debate them endlessly. Then you get older and tired, having your own ideals is a lot of work, so you tend to just borrow them from someone else. For most people, they borrow them from the people on whatever cable tv faction they subscribe to. In your friend’s case, he may have discovered that his soon-to-be fatherinlaw is very firm in his political ideals (which he probably gets from Rich White People Monthly), and decided to just borrow his. I could probably hold an entire argument from the perspective of a satanist or khmir rouge supporter. It’s really not that hard to change your political barometer once you’re familiar with the basics of one side’s arguments. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/3 "2009-08-17T17:57:05Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > When you’re very young, you sort of inherit your parents’ politics, as it’s all you know. > > Then you become a late-teenager early-twentysomething and you develop your own politics and want to debate them endlessly. > > Then you get older and tired, having your own ideals is a lot of work, so you tend to just borrow them from someone else. I had heard some time ago that people tend to be liberal when young, but shift toward the conservative end of the spectrum as they grow older. I’ve heard this expressed as a natural life course thusly: _If you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart. if you’re not a conservative when you’re old, you have no brain._ Perhaps the OP’s friend was overdue for a shift in personal ideology, and the exposure to his future father-in-law’s perspective was something of an eye-opener. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/4 "2009-08-17T18:08:20Z")
Just getting a pile of money can do that to your attitudes, at any age. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re entitled to it due to your own natural superiority. ---
**Author:** ![mischievous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/5 "2009-08-17T18:15:42Z")
It’s also possible that he’s been surrounded by like-minded individuals all his life and hasn’t ever needed to stand his ideological ground before. Once upon a time, my libertarian-ish boyfriend was promoted to a management position, and all of a sudden he was surrounded by conservatives and in a position where he was responsible for the productivity of his underlings. Out of nowhere, he starts talking about how pulling credits reports on potential employees is completely justifiable for any business, and drug testing should be mandatory for practically any business that pretends to be responsible to its customers. When I pointed out how much this completely contradicted his views on personal freedom, we had a long arguement, but he eventually realized that he had been absorbing the mindset at work without really thinking about it. At the end of the day, he decided that credit reports made some sense for _this business_, because what they were doing had an inherently high risk of inside stock trading, and drug testing should only be performed when someone is visibly incapacitated. So, pretty much back where we had been. I guess what I’m saying is that you should continue to argue with him and point out before-and-after contradictions, and he can find his way to his true beliefs (which might or might not be ones you like). ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/6 "2009-08-17T18:16:47Z")
He may feel he needs to say these things to impress her father. My boyfriend, for instance, now has an intense desire to go hunting and fishing because that is the kind of thing my dad is into despite the fact that he and I are more museum and theater people than hunting and fishing people. After enough time he will realize my dad likes him because he makes me happy and will probably calm down a bit on that kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/7 "2009-08-17T18:25:14Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > He may feel he needs to say these things to impress her father. My boyfriend, for instance, now has an intense desire to go hunting and fishing because that is the kind of thing my dad is into despite the fact that he and I are more museum and theater people than hunting and fishing people. After enough time he will realize my dad likes him because he makes me happy and will probably calm down a bit on that kind of thing. You’re probably right. His wedding is probably a factor, too since it is costing 30 grand and his father in law is picking up the tab. Not to mention being able to ‘borrow’ his parents-in-law’s house (expense free) while they live in Nevada for two years. I imagine he might feel like he owes his father-in-law a lot for his generosity, and realistically the only thing he can repay him in is loyalty. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Erasmus\_Darwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@Erasmus\_Darwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erasmus_Darwin)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/8 "2009-08-17T18:34:00Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > So the whole bitching about taxes he himself doesn’t have to pay gets really stupid. So he should only have an opinion on political issues that directly affect him? Anyway, one possibility is that it’s a lot easier to support heavily taxing the rich when they’re just an absurd stereotype consisting of faceless fat-cat bastards who probably got their ill-gotten gains by exploiting the less fortunate and engaging in illegal backroom deals. Given that his future father-in-law’s money comes from a recent startup, it’s quite possible that he’s seeing how much work went into the future father-in-law’s success. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/9 "2009-08-17T18:39:13Z")
Sounds to me like your friend has finally seen the light. Hopefully, he can persuade you to join the cause. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/10 "2009-08-17T18:58:19Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Just getting a pile of money can do that to your attitudes, at any age. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re entitled to it due to your own natural superiority. Some of us think we’re entitled to it because we worked our asses off to get it, and we’re a little shocked that other people think _they_ are entitled to so much of _our_ money. The OP’s friend’s future father-in-law successfully copiloted a startup to fruition. Startups, by all accounts, are labor-intensive, high-risk endeavors: you put in 80-hour weeks for a few years, earning peanut wages, living on mac-and-cheese and ramen, hoping for the big payoff; IF that payoff ever does arrive, it can be disheartening to see Uncle Sam carting off nearly 35 percent of the wealth you’ve worked so bloody hard to obtain. As **Erasmus Darwin** has suggested, experiencing that - or being exposed to someone who has experienced that - will do much to disabuse one of the notion that “rich people” are all greedy selfish bastards who don’t deserve the wealth they have. ---
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/11 "2009-08-17T19:03:25Z")
To a great extent people’s political opinions can be summed up by “where you stand depends on where you sit.” IMHO it’s hardly worth listening to anyone’s political opinions unless they contradict that, because they so rarely reflect any reasoning (as opposed to rationalization). Your friend just had the occasion to change where he sits, where he’s decided to stand just got dragged along for the ride. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/12 "2009-08-17T20:11:46Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > \I imagine he might feel like he owes his father-in-law a lot for his generosity, and realistically the only thing he can repay him in is loyalty. 🆒 There are worse things for a son-in-law to do. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/13 "2009-08-17T21:28:37Z")
> [@Joe Frickin Friday](#): > > Some of us think we’re entitled to it because we worked our asses off to get it, and we’re a little shocked that other people think _they_ are entitled to so much of _our_ money. > > The OP’s friend’s future father-in-law successfully copiloted a startup to fruition. Startups, by all accounts, are labor-intensive, high-risk endeavors: you put in 80-hour weeks for a few years, earning peanut wages, living on mac-and-cheese and ramen, hoping for the big payoff; IF that payoff ever does arrive, it can be disheartening to see Uncle Sam carting off nearly 35 percent of the wealth you’ve worked so bloody hard to obtain. As **Erasmus Darwin** has suggested, experiencing that - or being exposed to someone who has experienced that - will do much to disabuse one of the notion that “rich people” are all greedy selfish bastards who don’t deserve the wealth they have. Would the successful start-up have made the same amount of profit if it was started up in, say, Mozambique? Probably not. Since his hard work only materialized in significant profits due to the ability of our society to purchase his product, it’s only fair that he contribute a portion of it to help maintain or improve the society…so that someone else can have a successful start-up as well. The idea that we’re all greedy and selfish is one of the tenets of capitalism. If you believe in capitalism, you have to understand why taxes are necessary. But I agree that, in general, where you stand depends on where you sit. But I understand the OP’s frustration with his friend’s intellectual dishonesty. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/14 "2009-08-17T21:42:35Z")
> [@mischievous](#): > > When I pointed out how much this completely contradicted his views on personal freedom, we had a long arguement, but he eventually realized that he had been absorbing the mindset at work without really thinking about it. At the end of the day, he decided that credit reports made some sense for _this business_, because what they were doing had an inherently high risk of inside stock trading, and drug testing should only be performed when someone is visibly incapacitated. So, pretty much back where we had been. Send him this link: > [@](#): > > **There is no clear connection between a credit history and job performance** , and many job seekers consider it to be an unfair way of screening candidates, however, no Federal discrimination law specifically prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of a bad credit report. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and state credit laws help to regulate how an employer can obtain and use their findings. An employer must gain your consent in writing to do a credit check and the report they receive is different than one viewed by a credit agency or an individual. Full account numbers are not revealed and they won’t see a credit score, but they will be able to see late payments, collections and bankruptcies. If you are actually denied employment because of your credit report, the company must notify you so that you may view the report on which the decision was based. Source: [http://consumerist.com/5332831/hiring-consultant-warns-no-connection-between-credit-history-and-job-performance](http://consumerist.com/5332831/hiring-consultant-warns-no-connection-between-credit-history-and-job-performance) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/15 "2009-08-17T21:43:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Some of us think we’re entitled to it because we worked our asses off to get it, and we’re a little shocked that other people think they are entitled to so much of our money. And some folks with money think they’re entitled to it because they married the daughter of a guy who worked his ass off. If it’s all about getting money because you earned it, then this fellow shouldn’t be getting anything. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/16 "2009-08-17T22:23:12Z")
People with thin ideals can easily have them sand-blasted away when surrounded by and dependent on those with a more strident ideology. This is human nature, and the history of pretty much every movement in history. ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/17 "2009-08-17T22:55:07Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > But I agree that, in general, where you stand depends on where you sit. But I understand the OP’s frustration with his friend’s intellectual dishonesty. So the fact that the guy may have simply changed his mind automatically equals intellectual dishonesty? It’s very possible that he’s really never been exposed to this point of view before, in a serious way. It’s also very possible that he took a look at things, did some thinking, and decided he’d been wrong about a few things. I don’t know why he’s changed, and neither do you. Apparently, neither does **Incubus**. But I’m not jumping to conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/18 "2009-08-17T23:08:02Z")
It may well be that he was more diffident about his political views earlier, and now has greater confidence in them after associating with like-minded people. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/19 "2009-08-18T13:02:23Z")
> [@Joe Frickin Friday](#): > > Some of us think we’re entitled to it because we worked our asses off to get it, and we’re a little shocked that other people think _they_ are entitled to so much of _our_ money. Know what? A helluva lot of poor people work just as hard, or even harder, and stay poor anyway. Situational specifics and just plain luck play a large part in financial gain too, you might acknowledge. But the guy in the OP is looking down his nose on the hard-working unlucky essentially because he won the Girlfriend’s Dad Lottery. His “entitlement” is based on even less of his own efforts than his girlfriend’s herself. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752/20 "2009-08-18T14:56:13Z")
> [@thirdwarning](#): > > So the fact that the guy may have simply changed his mind automatically equals intellectual dishonesty? It’s very possible that he’s really never been exposed to this point of view before, in a serious way. It’s also very possible that he took a look at things, did some thinking, and decided he’d been wrong about a few things. > > I don’t know why he’s changed, and neither do you. Apparently, neither does **Incubus**. But I’m not jumping to conclusions. It’s true that no one _really_ knows why he’s changed. You can’t really ever know his motives, since motives are by definition unknowable. However, as long as the OP isn’t leaving anything out, the “sudden shift” in philosophy is a dead giveaway. I don’t buy the idea that he’s never been exposed to this point of view before. He’s a young, seemingly educated, professional. He’s not a high school student. Yeah, he did some thinking alright…:rolleyes: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-best-friend-drank-the-the-proverbial-kool-aid/506752.md?page=2)