Sadly, it isn’t just dads. My sister and BIL are like this. They used to be normal every day Republicans a few years ago, then they started forwarding crazy emails, mostly having to do with Obama grabbing guns or destroying businesses but some of it was birther stuff too. Basically, every time Obama scratches his ass, he destroys a piece of America. The problem, I think, is that they really aren’t interested in politics at all - they just turn on Fox news because it sort of sets a tone they like in the news but they barely pay attention and the weirdness just creeps in.
I’ve gotten my sister and BIL to stop sending the emails to me. The sad part is that even in casual conversation they repeat sound bites they’ve heard as if they were true (they did hear them on the ‘News’) with zero skepticism. My sister actually calls herself an atheist and a feminist but she repeats verbiage, word-for-word, right off Fox news that should be abhorrent to those groups. At some point I just had to accept that those labels mean something else to her than they do to me.
We’ve become a nation (world?) of people who seek out things that offend us and prop our world view. All sides are guilty of this. Compassion, trying to cut people some slack, actually thinking/listening are becoming a dim memory.
Yesterday I deleted a bunch of news feeds/web sites/and links to sites that do this for my world view. Life is too short and precious to be pissed off all the time; I’m going to try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and when things turn nasty I’ll just walk away and not engage.
The country is changing, people are afraid. Older people fear death and dying and younger people fear a loss of status and/or the unknown. Entities exploit this fear for fun and profit. Next time you have an unpleasant political conversation with someone ask him or her what they fear the most.
Unfortunately, I’ve also experienced this. The part I find the most annoying is his tendency to interject politics or Obama hatred into every single situation. Having lunch at a burger joint, he’ll rant about how the ACA is going to triple the menu prices or Michelle Obama wants to ban french fries.
Pull into a parking lot and see an electric vehicle charging station, he’ll start ranting about how environmentalists are destroying the company.
Talk about the weather, out comes the global warming is a hoax since it’s cold in Chicago in the winter.
I think regular viewers of Fox News should be required to also watch The Daily Show. Maybe being exposed to the ridiculous doublethink of its reporters and commentators might cure one or two of them.
Sigh. My husband has started to do this BS. He used to be a normal person, pretty middle of the road politically. But gradually over the years he’s become a bigoted, rage-filled extremist and his views are moving from just right-wing to bona-fide wing nut complete with conspiracy theories involving teh libruls, Obama and gays. I miss the guy I met and married, but he’s gone.
It’s eventually going to get really interesting. He’s 60 now, so he has many years left for further decline. And I’m . . . one of the enemy. I lean left, particularly on social issues. And of course, he’s my husband. I LIVE with him.
At some point his anger - and that’s exactly what it is, anger - is going to get the best of him and he’s going to have a stroke or something. Like others, I have a policy of not engaging in political discussions, but this mindset is becoming so pervasive that ANY conversation can be hijacked into some ridiculous bullshit.
I tell ya, his head is going to explode one day from sheer frustration that the rest of the world just doesn’t see things the way he does.
My Mother stopped getting out of the house and started watching Fox News during all waking hours. She always was Right compared to my Dad but she just got all scared of the outside world and I have to lay some of that at the feet of Beck/Hannity/O’Reilly etc. Her failing health was part of it, but the constant chatter was a huge portion of it.
She passed a few years ago and the last few years was very hard to find any common ground.
I’d like to add an interesting note about my 80 year old dad. But first you should be aware that hell has indeed, frozen over. And we should plan the next winter Olympics there.
A lot of details here, but I hope they’re interesting. My dad is and has always been, one of the most conservative people I’ve ever known. Not the hate-filled or angry lecturing type, but one who doesn’t believe the government has any “social” role in the lives of its citizens. He has always felt the government should “deliver my mail, protect my shores, and leave me the hell alone.” He’s an extremely capable person, with multiple engineering degrees (3 at last count), a licensed electrician, pilot, Professional Engineer, plumber, carpenter, and can literally build a house himself (that passes all codes and inspections).
It’s my belief he overestimates other people’s abilities, and mistakenly ascribes lack of success to indolence. Homeless? Why don’t they build a house? Car’s broke? Open the hood and fix it. Low on money? Companies need people all the time, just go get another job. I think he honestly didn’t understand most people can’t do this.
Anyway, I wanted backstory for this. The last time I visited with Dad, he had done a 180. He says it is now imperative that we establish a Minimum Guaranteed Income of some type to avoid disaster. He’s been watching and following changes in worker efficiency and automation, along with changes in corporations, and his belief is that we’re entering the most significant workforce change since the introduction of the factory. He thinks this will change the world as thoroughly as the move from farms to cities, and that we’re already “behind the power curve” on it (as retired Air Force, one of his favorite sayings). He says there simply cannot be enough jobs in the future to support the population, and “we sure as hell can’t let 'em starve!” He’s a little angry with our politicians, but not in the typical right-wing way.
Sorry for the TLDR, but this was as shocking to me as if I’d turned on the TV and heard Barbara Boxer was now president of the NRA.
I’m a 44 year old woman, and this is troubling me mightily. I own a construction company, and we are so much more efficient every year. From when I started 20 years ago, there are at least 30% less people on the job site.
We are making humans obsolete. From the empty guardhouses, to the ATM, etc.
I am not anti technology, I fully embrace it, and am thrilled by breakthroughs like 3d printing that are truly revolutionary.
I also believe that humans are designed to do stuff, be creative thinkers, be physically active, work. For our mental and physical well being. If we don’t need to work, what then?
From what I see, our society/government is backing into a solution, rather than proactively dealing with future. If our “leisure class” is going to significantly increase, let’s sponsor inventors, economists, artists, scientists to improve the human race, as opposed to expanding the definitions of disability, or setting out a minimum dole so the uneducated, unmotivated can while the hours away on xbox, depressed.
I’ve built homes in Haiti. I went in there like a typical American, wanting to build fast, efficient, and consistent. It took me a while to grasp the idea that Haitians need to develop skills, experience and earn a living wage, to become middle class and the leaders and business owners of tomorrow, as opposed to just taking handouts and moving in the homes we Americans built for them as efficiently as possible.
Labor inefficiency goes against every thing we were taught, but times have changed.
An idle, uneducated, unmotivated, no hope to improve their circumstances underclass is a dangerous thing.
This is not a new phenomenon and it will not result in people having nothing to do.
We have already made almost all the jobs that ever existed obsolete by replacing people with machines. What happened, rather unsurprisingly, was that human endeavour changed and so new jobs were created.
You’ve both nailed it. They may be feeling rage, but it feels good to feel something. And they intentionally provoke their children, to feel justified and powerful. Yes, it happens with the Maddow crowd too. It’s basically bullying. Politics is just a flimsy justification. Children represent an outlet/attention for all this lying-in-wait rage.
But try convincing someone that it’s all hormones and a misguided sense of privilege. That’ll go over well.
For my mother it’s an opportunity to hear the truth from another perspective, and to hear a truth she wouldn’t hear elsewhere. Benghazi isn’t being covered in such detail by our local paper, for example. She’s learning Rush isn’t a good source for truth as she defines it, and she’s disappointed by that. It’s hard to face.
Arcite, your dad nees a “You’re not helping” sign.
You have a poor knowledge of history. Unfortunately.
Who’s going to force them to do so, hmm? The government?
Yeah, THAT’LL be a great way to rid older conservatives of the notion that Obama is a fascist!
That said, can I sympathize at ALL with the OP? Sure- I have some very conservative family members in New York and some very liberal in-laws here in Texas (no, that isn’t backwards!). I get all kinds of emails and see all kinds of Facebook postings from both groups. They can be annoying, embarrassing, and mindblowingly stupid.
People who’ve seen my posts know that I stand with the Right (not always comfortably) 90% of the time. I certainly don’t object to mocking President Obama. But I regularly delete political-looking emails from relatives and in-laws, because I just know the right-wing nuts are sending pictures of Obama eating watermelon, and the left-wing nuts are sending recycled conspiracy theories
(Hijack: One of the weird things about having elderly relatives who are newcomers to the Internet is that they feel the need to send out constant warnings about urban legends that the rest of us heard debunked 20 years ago!)
Believe it or not, I VERY rarely argue about religion or politics in person. That’s what I come HERE for! If I annoy Marley or Diogenes or Der Trihs, what do I care? But I’d generally prefer NOT to fight with family. I bite my tongue a LOT in the real world. And it’s not easy. And believe it or not, I very rarely listen to political talk radio or to Fox News. Like most people, I WORK for a living! I don’t have TIME to listen to the radio during the day (and when I do, I’m more likely to listen to music or sports talk). Who DOES have time to listen to the radio or to political TV talk shows all day! Ahhhhh… Grandma and Grandpa!
But I listen and watch just often enough to say this categorically: the worst things you hear from demented right wing relatives are NOT coming from Rush Limbaugh or Fox News! I’m not sure WHERE they come from, but Rush Limbaugh is NOT a peddler of conspiracy theories. He’s merely the right wing version of Jon Stewart- a guy who makes sarcastic jokes about liberals, and who makes his fans laugh by playing liberal soundbites out of context and mocking them.
You may think Rush is utterly wrong, you may think he’s a phony (he’d probably ADMIT that he’s doing a schtick much of the time), you may think he’s a blowhard, but he is NOT the source of the paranoid delusions that some of our conservative relatives exhibit. And neither is an ordinary Fox News telecast.
Or, try a couple of Canadian news sources too. I find their views of our politics interesting. We are so very close in habit and language (well, the English bit) that it is harder to misconstrue what they say - without the help of Rush, of course.
