Oh No, not MY mom...

[CommandoFrank]

After lurking for years, I am finally submitting my first post. My liberal Bush hating Mother wrote me this letter. Help...

[Devman]

Just wanted to add a little perspective to the body bag statistic. During our pre-deployment briefing for the original Gulf War, we were told the Pentagon had ordered 100,000 body bags for that conflict.

Hope that helps...

[ohioman]

I feel bad for this kid and am more thankful that my own mother is a conservative (i.e., Intelligent) woman.

[jeeperz]

You are so right about that - I remember Ross Perot screaming about the 60,000 body bags he was aware of in Gluf War I - and he was sure we were going to use.

[CommandoFrank]

This is my first post anywhere. I do drop in on them for occasional laughs.

[nina0113]

How I've been dealing with the liberals I know is, I tell them some of Saddam's torture stories, and then use one or more of the following lines:
Should we just ignore this?
If you hear a woman screaming in an alley, do you just walk away?
I don't like the US being the World Cop either, but who else can stop this mugging?
If it were about oil, don't you think it would be cheaper to BUY it?
Yes, we did support Saddam in his war against Iran. Doesn't that mean we have an even greater responsibility to remove him now?

Though from the tone of your mother's letter, it doesn't sound like anything you tell her will work. For the sake of the relationship, I'd write the "agree-to-disagree" letter someone suggested earlier, then let it go. When she sees the pictures of the mass graves and WMD that we are GOING TO FIND (the inspectors can't find them, but the Marines sure can), she'll come around. At that point, no matter how hard the words "I told you so" are fighting to get out of your mouth, choke them back.

[KickRightRudder]

I was a everyday lurker since jones/lewinsky day jan/1998. I recently made my first post as well. Welcome! Your refutation is good.

[Lauratealeaf]

That is sad about your father. Maybe there is some kind of connection between senility and liberalism. I don't know. I have been very blessed by my parents. They are conservative Republicans and pretty outspoken about it too. They have an antique shop and play Rush Limbaugh's radio show in it. A few times some of their customers might complain about Rush or something he says and if the customers are being obnoxious about it my Dad just tells them to "Hit the road!" My husband had to deal with Democrat parents and I could see his agony trying to reason with them when there was just no reason to be found in them. Eventually his Dad came to the party but his mother was senile by that time. A sad way to end up.

[mn12]

My mom is very liberal as well. It got much worse after she befriended a bunch of socialist college professors (a redundancy, I know).

Whenever she tells me about the war protest she attended or how some evil conservative is going to destroy America, I just try my best to ignore it and not get pissed off. I've learned to not even bother arguing with her. Making logical, factual, rational points against someone who makes "arguments" based upon moral/cultural relativism and emotions is like arguing with a brick wall. When I try, she either says nothing and abruptly changes the subject, or calls me a "bigoted arch-conservative redneck" or similar.

She really helped to shape my political views. Once I began critically thinking about and debunking her views (when I was around 10 years old), it really opened my eyes.

[eyespysomething]

My dad, who flew B-52's in Vietnam, shocked me when after the 2000 election, I said something good about Bush, and he unleashed a barrage (sp?) of hatred towards him (Bush). After that, I just never brought up politics again. The closest I came was after 9-11, and I asked him what he thought about it, and he said it was one thing for them to hit the Pentagon, that was a military target, but it was wrong for them to purposefully attack civilian targets. I just saw no need to burn a bridge with my dad. My gay liberal brother tried to argue once, just once with me about why the gov't should force drug companies to give away AIDS medicine, especially overseas. After I asked him about their cost for r&d and went on about lifestyle choices (wearing condoms, etc) he was ready to get off the phone. He did send he a funny card making fun of Bush for Christmas. It was funny, and I am not going to take it that personally. When you know you're right, it really doesn't bother you that much. You know you're right, let it go with your mom. Just make sure you tell her you love her.

[muggs]

Frank, mom never told me I had a brother.

[Fraulein]

ROTFLMAO!

Dr Phil says I love you

That one really cracked me up!

[Gritty]

Nice letter, Frank.

Now go give your Mother a kiss and tell her "I love you".

You don't need to remind her she has the brain of Daffy Duck. She probably already suspects it as she has told you she doesn't want to hear your reasonable answers to her nutty ramblings.

The poor thing just needs a hug.

[Sabertooth]

I am through talking about this. You can send all the quotes you want. I won't read any more of it. The whole thing is making me ill.

Can we please quit talking about this. It makes me ill.

Yet another bit of evidence for Larry Elder's adage:

"Facts to a liberal are like kryptonite to Superman."

Whatever you write, be sure to send along one of those lead X-ray cloaks for your mother's safety.

[Becki]

Excellent reply, Frank!! I count my blessings that my parents were conservatives, and passed it down.

The only thing I would add it the evidence of Iraqi money to the Taliban and Usama. Yes, getting Saddam will thwart the spread of terror and these fanatics.

Good luck!

Becki

[Hatteras]

I applaud your response and if you hadn't mentioned being a park ranger I would have thought this was a letter my mother-in-law wrote to my brother-in-law.

She spits some serious venom when attempting to discuss GWB and politics in general. Her attempt to deny your response was right out of my mother-in-law's handbook. "Here's what I think about your President and I don't want to discuss it!"

BTW, just being picky here:

"When Americans were dying from these deployments did you protest?"

[dirtboy]

"Facts to a liberal are like kryptonite to Superman."

I've always prefered saying facts to a liberal are like garlic is to a vampire, as the analogy fits the liberal mindset better...

[meyer]

You're much more tactful than I would be. :^)

OK, its Mom and all, but she's very wrong.

I have a liberal environazi brother with communist tendencies so I know how it is to have a family member on the extreme left. He's still stuck in the '60's, he is quite condescending towards those that aren't "enlightened", and if he weren't handicapped, I suspect he'd be out there marching with the ANSWER crowd. But there's hope for him yet - he doesn't work in the museum any more, so that leftist influence is gone. And, he's taken to going to church regularly. Who knows, maybe he'll be cured of liberalism some day.

As for my relationship with bro - I live 600 miles away so I don't have to correspond with him very often. When I do visit the family, I generally avoid the subject, though I do throw an occasional jab at him. :^) It was interesting a few weeks ago when he and I were at my sister's house and Bob B-1 Dornan came up on the TV. Bro just went into a leftist tirade about Dornan's being an a**h*** and how flippin' stupid he was and on and on. I simply asked him to substantiate his assessment of Bob Dornan's mental condition. He shut up quickly. Calm responses to emotional rhetoric are helpful when discussing these matters.

[jimt]

You have a really tough row to hoe there, pardner.

[meyer]

Funny - I only have two children - the liberal older daughter, and the younger daughter, a proud military wife who fully supports our President and this effort.

Something to keep in mind when calculating your will.

[Petronski]

Yes, with Hitler--he started out saying he was going to liberate all the countries that he took over.

Pure BS.