Sometimes it is hard to be friends with a Conservative Republican

[Lady Freedom Returns]

They keep trying to change you. Mine is determined to make me a fiscal conservative at the lest. She can dream on. I don't like the way things are being ran, but I think that we need to spend the money in the right places and keep the stuff that she thinks is an abomination to the "working man". I can't see how help for the poor can be this, but she can have her own views. I just get sick of not being able to have mine.

I am one of those who try not to rock the boat and she keeps rocking mine.

P.S I place it in the Lounge to get some way to look at the bright side.

[OriginalGeek]

1. My friend, co-worker and office mate

is a Tea Party republican.

Work gave us an office so we could shut the door and argue without bothering everyone else in the department. (We are seriously lucky in that we are valued enough to be accommodated rather than replaced)

It's a lot of fun but we enjoy that kind of thing. We rock each other's boats all day every day. If you can't get into doing that it might be tougher for you. Maybe start by finding the things you DO agree on. Even if it's not a political thing...

Although it might be easier for me because we are both atheists so we have that in common. I just can't figure out how he steered so right and I steered so correct.

even as we were splitting up the office and arranging furniture we agreed it would be best if he took the right side and I took the left.

We aren't just "work friends" though...not sure how close you and your friend are but mine comes to my house for dinner and we go to his and our families do stuff together on weekends and other times.

You know how much a friend you have when he shows up at your house to help you dig out a septic tank. He even laughed when I said "Holy moly we dug up Limbaugh - it's full of shit!"

Anyway, I don't know if this helps you at all or just makes it worse. You aren't alone though. Feel free to come here and vent if you don't want to do it to your friend.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

3. It just that even when we are doing something that has nothing to do with politics, she finds a way

I,m am going to let her have it with the sad, painful truth about what she think is the greatest leader of all time yet. I really do get sick of hearing about Reagan.

[OriginalGeek]

6. oh yeah I hear that 15 times a day...

"Hey man, did they mess with the air conditioning? It seems hotter than usual..."

"THANKS OBAAAAMAAAAAAAA" (and then a long rant on turning the ac off to save electricity because Barack has fake-warmed the globe with his policies)


yeah, we have fun.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

2. One of my best friends from high school

caught conservatism after he moved to LA of all places. He started listening to Rush Limbaugh -before everybody knew who Rush Limbaugh was. In later years he used to drunk-dial me whenever he had something he wanted to spout off about. When I'd ask him where he got some ridiculous "fact" he would never admit that it came from Rush Limbaugh- it was always "I've researched" or "I talk to lots of people". (At that time he was working in the leisure industry, selling time shares to old geezers who were the source of much of his information.) And what used to infuriate me was the way he'd get off his broadside, and then two sentences into my retort he'd break in with some outrageous claim or denial, and before I could make my point the subject would be changed (Don't let your right wing friends get away with this- I eventually started calling him out on it)

Thing was, when we weren't talking about politics- and it was always him who brought up politics- we really saw the same humor in the world, and we liked most of the same movies/music/art/books. I've never known anybody who got my sense of humor the way he did. But when it came to politics, as with most conservatives it was like talking to a wall. No matter how ridiculous his position, in his mind it was 100% right and there was no possibility of changing his mind.

So yeah- I've experienced what you're talking about. For some reason conservatives always seem to feel this need to 'evangelize' their liberal friends. My best advice would be try to keep the conversation away from politics when you're talking to your friend, or else spend a lot of time researching your positions on things for the times when she ambushes you.

[rurallib]

7. "caught conservatism"

[gratuitous]

4. Go all Socratic dialectic on her

That is, pretend you don't know anything, and nudge her along the logical path of her positions. Lead her right to the trough, and it will be up to her whether to drink. But quite often, I have found that getting behind the sound bite and working out the premises and pursuing the consequences of a position hasn't occurred to a lot of people. You don't have to rock the boat to bump her off the schneid. If her brain starts working, who knows where it could lead?

[Chan790]

5. My two best friends are.

It works fine after we came to an understanding.

"Jim" is a dyed-in-the-wool tea party loon. After he conceded that the corporations I loathe are in factually bed with the big government he loathes (and vice-versa), we got on better. He still thinks the solutions are the Tea Party solutions but he's at-least cognizant that his movement is being played in different self-serving agendas by the likes of Romney, Ron Paul and the brothers Koch. We've agreed that if it comes to a shooting war, the other will be among the first against the wall.

"Bob" is a libertarian. Not a Paulite, the real deal. Reads Hegel, Nozick and Rothbard; thinks that you shouldn't be allowed to claim the label if you're pro-life, anti-drug or a Christian. Anti-tax, anti-war, pro-drug, pro-hedonism, pro-choice. Ironically, he's married to a senior analyst for the DHS and a practicing Catholic. "Bob" and I need no understanding, I think he's an unrealistic idealist and he's perfectly-happy to work towards my ideals as he sees them as destructive to the current "Reagan Conservative" GOP and empowering to its' usurpation by right-libertarians like himself.

"Jim" spends his time trying to convert "Bob". "Bob" (who is many many magnitudes of intelligence smarter than "Jim&quot responds with comments about "Jim's" immaturity and skewed morality.

[erinlough]

8. I don't have many Conservative Republicans as friends anymore.

I think it is because I refuse to talk politics with them. I remind them that I 100% disagree with them and there is nothing they could ever say to change my mind, so they should pick another subject. They usually walk away and that is just fine with me.

[Populist_Prole]

9. I don't know what it is. My closest friends are turning into conservatives

I think it is an "I got mine, the hell with you" dynamic more aging/bitterness thing, but I really do believe some of the latter has an effect. I am 10 years younger than the youngest of them, and even then none of them are really elderly, but if there is really only one commonality between all of them, it is that they are retired, soon to be retired and reasonably secure - AND - Have in their respective cases either become more much active in their present religion, or found it outright. All were former co-workers who, while socially center-right, heretofore voted and supported working class center/center-left policies. In fact, say 10 years ago, it was me that was to the right of them. They are now these constant spouters of conservative/corporatist rhetoric. It was like a switch went off. Now even when I try to elucidate them in the most tactful and subtle way I can, they come at me with fangs and long knives.

It's a f***ing shame since we on most ever other issue than politics/religion we get along fantastic. But you see, that's the problem too: You can't talk about traffic lights, door hinges, cars, food, houses, trees whatever, without one of them turning it political and getting worked up enough to blow a blood vessel.

I'm not trying to be dramatic or fish for sympathy, but the fact that a large part of my social contacts are drifting apart from me makes me rueful beyond words. Don't even get me started on my family.

All this started because a black center-right man got elected president?

[Curmudgeoness]

10. Well, at least a fiscal conservative

could never expect us to build a fence all the way along the Mexican border, then move to the Canadian border.

I mean, really, how much will THAT cost???

[Arugula Latte]

11. Ask her if she's in favor of slashing the "defense" budget to the bone

in the interests of fiscal conservatism.

[deucemagnet]

12. I have a conservative friend that I can kid around with in good fun now.

Previously, there was another guy who I was on friendly terms with, but I found his attitude much more insulting. He considered liberals "well-meaning, but misguided" and always thought that I'd come around to his way of thinking when I got some money, or when I "matured". As if having a conscience was immature, or that values would be jettisoned by anybody who attained some wealth in the interest of attaining more. Sometimes I think there's just too big of a gulf in basic human decency to be bridged with some people.

[noamnety]

13. I have one pet republican

and the bright side of it almost blinded me last time we hung out. He was being a Romney fanboy, I got to tell him why, as a former sgt, I was sickened by his protesting FOR the draft when he used his religion to get out of it. He listened and didn't seem to know about that, but wrapped up the conversation with "well, anyway, that's who I would vote for. If I could vote, I mean. (pause) I can't because I'm a felon."

I know it was inappropriate but I had a huge grin there. Funny how their own policies always seem to come back to bite them in the ass.