Posted on 04/28/2015 11:56:37 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
I remember the righteous smugness I used to feel when the one conservative friend in my social circle would begin expressing his opinions at a dinner gathering. I and the other ‘enlightened’ diners would shift uncomfortably and glance at one another, rolling our eyes: "Here he goes again." My stomach would tighten with a worry not fit for the occasion. I began to feel personally offended. And the smugness sometimes boiled over into anger, as I'd listen to my friend, loyal and kind, simply share his "crazy" ideas and opinions with us.
What I thought then was only my frustration with his views, I know now was also my own discomfort with my belief it was okay to dismiss and condemn him for expressing himself. We ganged up on him. And while he didn’t like it(who would?),he took it well,and eventually the conversation would drift into safer territory like work and sports, and all would be forgotten.
Oftentimes after these dinners I was left thinking (no pun intended), that this guy was one of the smartest, nicest people I knew, and all he was trying to do was offer another angle on things. He was sharing a voice that wasn't that of an echoing lemming skirting over issues in search of a choir, but rather an informed, passionate, and to us, provocative perspective we were all uneasy with. And again, I could feel in my gut that I hadn’t been fair or nice. But wait, aren't us liberals supposed to be “nice” and sensitive… and open? I mean, if the basic meaning of the word liberal is to “advocate the freedom of the individual,” why then is there such hell to pay for those who don’t agree with the Left’s political or social views?
Why the defensiveness? Why the arrogance? Why the hostility?....
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Bump
But it is worth the effort.
Remember that a conservative is a former liberal who has been mugged.
Shunned-but better for it
Yes!
We need to grow thick skins and soldier on.
Some element of the far Right is extremely doctrinaire and at times, I wish they could hear themselves
been there, done that.
leftists are never to be trusted
I wrote a post once about a couple of my children swaying leftward from college on and received a response on this forum saying that he/she wished my children would experience a excruciating, painful death....
I have also been subject to other hateful responses here and all this achieves is to make me less willing to engage in and support FR. My being a conservative who strives to follow and represent my Lord Jesus makes no difference to some folks. Even this post will most likely elicit some snarky, ugly response (unfortunately).
Hate exists in every community, I suppose.
friendship requires RESPECT, SIMILAR INTERESTS, and POSITIVE REGARD.
have to have all three.
I have a very diverse family tree (in terms of both melanin and different faiths). Im Causasian but grew up in a mostly Black neighborhood in the city of Pittsburgh (we were the minority). One of my best friends, white, 30 grew up in the lily pad suburb where I now live. She is a school teacher (even a union rep when she taught full time). Her church is as “pale” as our surrounding zip code. Yet, as a true believing, only votes Dem unionistsa zealot, she PROUDLY proclaimed ANYONE who didn’t vote for #Obama (either time) as a “RAAAACIST.”
Needless to say, we avoid the topic of politics. Her husband is very conservative. She can’t believe they “anyone” like me, could NOT be a Democrat...LOLZ.
She must have some redeeming qualities to have a conservative husband and friend! You make the case for: it isn't your skin color, it's your "indoctrination" that gives you your politics. What ever happened to her getting older and smarter? : )
Just bring up the subject of GMO and see what happens.
This is true. We have a few nasty types here but for the most part we are true caring conservatives.
Don't let the nasty ones drive you away.
No forgiveness, ever. Get lost.
Yup, have had that happen to me just recently.
Well, I’ve noticed that the only people beating up Bruce Jenner worse than his “tolerant” liberal “friends” since he admitted to being a conservative are people here on FR.
The social mechanism of the totalitarian state is political correctness.
The liberal way of socialization is to abdicate logic and refer to the latest political correctness standard on any issue.
If one is a genuine thinker, one cannot actually be a contemporary liberal.
Look at the issue of global warming for example, where liberals have actually created an alternate reality, occupied by pseudo scientists who actually receive federal funding to solidify the myth of global warming.
There is no global warming. What we have is a long term state of climate change back and forth over millenia. During the Cretaceous period on earth, there was no ice anywhere, just forest and jungle from pole to pole, 20% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, yet life still thrived and evolved.That was approximately 80 million years ago.
And the left want us to believe that the world is ending due to climate change?
Its just a way to create a totalitarian state, when in fact people just do not want that at all.
No, its perfectly fine for Liberals to wake up and realize they are on the wrong side of the view of how the world works. The more, the merrier.
For a wake up on so called climate change, this is a good site:
http://www.lordmoncktonfoundation.com/temp_trend_series
I enjoyed your comments. I was born in South Carolina and went to school in state. At about the age of 25 I moved to various areas of the country before settling down in Pittsburgh and lived there for almost 30 years before returning to SC. I often tell people that the “whitest” place I have ever lived in was Pittsburgh. It always amused me how many people in the Burgh believed southerners were racists, while many of the suburbs of Pittsburgh were lilly white. I grew up with African Americans and now live in a community in Columbia that has a high percentage of black home ownership. We get along fine. I mean no disrespect for Pittsburgh - - I truly have great fondness for the city and its residents - - but many there spout their liberal beliefs, vote for whomever is the Democratic flavor of the month and then retire to their suburban white flight neighborhoods.
I have a similar situation. A few years ago, by uncle would turn on Fox News when we would all get together just for the fun of it.
We have those among conservatives right here on FR.....the ones who will not accept anyone who is not a life-long Christian conservative and perfect on every issue since their birth. Good conservatives who become more conservative are rejected by these "purists" as untrustworthy.
It is not very different from the gay or liberal mafia.
“Liberals don’t do civilization well.”
Liberals don’t do many things well, except for intolerance, hatred, duplicity, mendacity, machination, lust for power, love of money, psychopathy, sociopathy, adolescence, and when they gain absolute power, the imprisonment, torture and murder of the general population.
IMHO
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