Turns out, my friend's husband is an anti-semitic nutjob

[Dinsdale]

@Mangetout

I honestly think this could be one of those situations where I would set good manners aside and tell the guy he’s full of shit.

I mean, “thanks for the lovely meal and I really appreciate you inviting us, but you’re full of shit. Do you ever really listen to the utter bollocks you’re talking?”

I guess this is why I don’t get invited many places, but I agree with this approach. In a less extreme situation, some months back we were at friends’ house for dinner. Along the way she started talking about how the twin towers did not fall from the planes, but some intentional plot. (You can google all kinds of crap on that.) I really like and respect this woman, and felt the need to tell her that I was disappointed that she would be so uncritical in her thinking to believe such crap. Really upset her at the time, but things are now fine between us.

In my case, I told the truth because I liked and respected the speaker. In your case, the speaker is a nasty lunatic. I would cease any further contact with such a person, or anyone like your friend who enables such insanity. I imagine the better approach might be to feign a migraine - but I imagine it would be hard to tell the guy as I left that I thought he was batshit crazy. I would hate for my silence to allow him to think I agreed with him.

[Larry_Borgia]

@Bridget Burke

There–that clears things up! Tales of the reptilian Illuminati make good camouflage for the old, tired story of Jew-hating. Who knows what’s really going on in Icke’s head? But the OP tells us what the friend’s husband said. Which this lapsed Catholic Irish-American Texan finds totally unacceptable.

I hope the OP has a good, long talk with her friend. And I hope that the kids are not homeschooled.

I agree, I was making a comment about Icke, not about the husband, who appears to be a straight up anti-semitic conspiracy theorist. Certainly an anti-semite might find a lot in Icke that is congenial. That being said the wiki article you cite goes on:

Icke has strongly denied that his reptiles represent Jews, calling it “friggin’ nonsense.”[12] “I am not an anti-Semite!”, he told The Guardian, “I have a great respect for the Jewish people.”[5] He maintains that the reptilians are not human, and therefore not Jewish, but are “extra-dimensional entities” that enter and control human minds. “This is not a Jewish plot. This is not a plot on the world by Jewish people,” he told Jon Ronson.[12]

British journalist Louis Theroux, reviewing Jon Ronson’s Them: Adventures with Extremists, cautioned against accusing Icke of anti-Semitism: “Icke’s ‘theory’ is basically The Protocols of the Elders of Zion with a new cast and a few script changes. Not surprisingly, Icke has come under suspicion of anti-Semitism… Not only might it be unfair to Icke, but by implying that he is so dangerous that he has to be censored, the watchdogs are giving a patina of seriousness to ideas that are — let’s face it — very, very silly.”

[Sailboat]

@Hampshire

My take on this?

The guy is 34-35. That means he was 9 or 10 years old in 1983. A very impressionalbe age. Also happens to be the year V: The final battle miniseries was shown on network television. A hidden race of lizard people among us taking over the earth. Scary stuff for a 10 year old. Stuff that can scar you and carry over into adulthood if you’re an unstable 10 year old.

Oh-my-God. And he made the comment while watching…V for Vendetta!

It all makes sense now!

[maladroit]

Since it’s the 2 wives that are friends and the nutjob hubby is ancillary I’d have firmly changed teh subject to something neutral and non-political.

[cruel_butterfly]

@Hampshire

In my mind you really have no choice. You have to mess with this guy and convince him you are a lizard person.
-Get up from your chair and say “hey, there’s a fly in your kitchen” and go into the kitchen. Return empty handed but pretend you’re chewing something and say "Don’t worry, I got it."
-When sitting in a room choose a seat under an incandesent light and comment “I like to sit under warm lights for some reason”.
-Randomly flick your tongue when only he’s watching.
-Scratch your arms and say “My skin has been feeling so scaly lately.”

(bolding mine)

You reminded me of something that happened during dinner.

There was a fly buzzing around the dining room at the time, and Lizard Boy took a bite of his roast beef at the same time the fly flew right into his mouth. He spit out the meat into his hand and turned it over to reveal the injured/stunned fly.

I think he may actually BE a lizard person and is trying to throw us off the scent so he can take over the world with all of his reptilian cohorts.

[gurujulp]

@Sonnenstrahl

Wait, wait. Is he serious about the lizard people thing? Or is it just a figure of speech? Because if he truly believes that some public figures are reptilian humanoids, his problems go deeper than repulsive political views. I’m inclined to agree with **Swallowed My Cellphone **- could it be a form of mental illness? Paranoia, maybe? When my grandmother developed Alzheimers, she started expressing the racist views that were common during her childhood, and didn’t understand why it was inappropriate.

Lyndon Larouche is all about the lizard people too…

You don’t have to be mentally ill to believe really strange things- what about the cannibalistic vampire cult called the catholic church that has affected history so strongly?

[Captain_Amazing]

@gurujulp

Lyndon Larouche is all about the lizard people too…

I thought with Larouche it was that the British Crown and Kissinger control the drug trade.

[Chronos]

Personally, were I in that situation, I would have said, right then and there, “Since we are clearly not welcome in your home, we will be leaving now. Goodbye.”, and left, even if it was right in the middle of dinner. If they asked for an explanation, I would have said that I/my spouse was Jewish, and not attempted any further debate.

Now, in the actual case, I’m not Jewish, and if neither were my hypothetical spouse, then I would have rebutted the idiocy and left as soon after dinner as could be arranged, but would still stay through dinner.

[cruel_butterfly]

@maladroit

Since it’s the 2 wives that are friends and the nutjob hubby is ancillary I’d have firmly changed teh subject to something neutral and non-political.

I pay a lot of attention to body language, and that night is no exception. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, I detected a subtle change in his facial expression that made me think that he had little control over what had been said. It was like the filter between his brain and his mouth vaporized and what was said was as unexpected by him as it was by everyone else at the table. Not an excuse, mind you. Just an observation.

Anyway, he got almost no feedback of any kind to the comments, and the subject changed easily. I can’t remember how, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was that one of the kids said or did something to distract everyone.

[Larry_Borgia]

@Captain_Amazing

I thought with Larouche it was that the British Crown and Kissinger control the drug trade.

You’re right. Larouche is a lunatic and in many ways more hateful than Icke, but space aliens do not appear to be part of his world view.

[devilsknew]

I’d just drop it, no use encouraging him. Maybe talk tangntially about what you believe in a non confrontational manner, if it happens again.

I heard from a friend first time in about 15 years, he’d changed quite a bit. He turned into a 9/11 conspiracy theorist pretty hardcore. I didn’t say anything to encourage it, just explained politely where I stood and that was it.