Socializing Defies Me Again

When it comes to a lot of issues involving politics and those issues tied to it I establish my stance and, while making snide remarks from time to time, usually leave it alone. I can find comfort in my understanding on a particular issue (after way to much research because I over analyze and am overly skeptical) and then discuss with the wife and am done. This process usually works itself out perfectly and all is said and done.

To give you a little background there is an acquaintance of mine that I find myself spending a lot of time with since he is the husband of one my wife's good friends and coworkers. Given this fact, it is often the case that we get stuck with each other while the wives talk about more pressing work issues. My contention arises in the fact that he is a die hard republican and extremely conservative. Now that isn't a reason to discount someone, and I know quite a few people that fall in this category that I can talk with and have enjoyable, well educated debates. What makes this situation worse is that he doesn't take this stance simply on the facts that he has read and then made an informed decision from the spectrum of available sources. NO! He makes his decisions based on party lines and then uses the party stance to start arguments in hopes of establishing conversational superiority. Now I am a huge fan of a debate, even heated debates, I mean I egg them on. Not with this guy though. His only reference is what they said on Fox News or MSNBC and sites the most conservative people that he can think of and doesn't even think to look at the opposition to the statements because they might be supported by, you guessed it, democrats. Everything in this guys life revolves around politics, even his grandiose ideas about becoming a realistate tycoon in Mexico (a whole different rant there on what he talks about doing to the country and the impacts on both the culture and the working conditions of the people). There is no conversation to be had with this guy, be it economy or fish sticks, that he isn't going to try and "win." Oh my god!!! Just when I establish faith in the fact that Americans could possibly make informed, education, well rounded decisions (however delusional that might be) I have a conversation with this guy and all faith in humanity is lost!

Ok, now to the points of contention. In our most recent conversation on Wednesday night here are the points of which I had to say, "Listen, this is a concept that is very loaded and since you are not wanting to listen to what I am saying, I think we should move on to something else!" First off, this yahoo told me the he doesn't believe that humans have contributed at all to global warming and climate change. Are you kidding me? I really chuckled, really, because I thought that there was no way on this planet that I would run into a college educated human being that would believe something like this just because his radical party mates told him to. But he does. He proceed to explain to me, in a very demeaning and childlike manner, that the "earth's climate goes in cycles" and the "this is just nature taking it's course" and that "people have done nothing and fossil fuels can't have possibly contributed." Wow, wow, wow. I held my breath, asked sternly how far he had gotten into science in his high school and college careers and after realizing that this yahoo had only gotten through Biology I in high school, with a C mind you, that it was time to move on to a new topic. The thought of trying to explain Super Carbons or Methane gas to this wacko were just beyond my tolerance level at that point.

So....what does he bring up next. F'n sweat shop labor and maquiladoras in and throughout Mexico as a "great idea" and that "they really help the people there because they at least give them jobs." I don't know what I expected from the ultra-conservative wack job, but I did not expect this. This guy told me that working 18 hour days, for 7 days a week, at the age of 10, for 25 cents a week, is ok because at least it gives them work. Wow, wow, wow!!!! I again held my breath, counted to ten, and said that with that opinion there was no conversation to be had. I then quickly started a conversation about a dog just to get away from this mindless, ill researched, ill informed, ignorant conversation in hopes of not making myself lose IQ points by talking to this guy. I still can't believe it.

Ok. So what has this done to my sunny disposition I was attempting to hold onto about humanity and the state of our country. IT'S GONE. BLOWN OUT OF THE WATER. I know realize that even after 8 years of having f'n Pinocchio as president and the proverbial rape to our economy, military, and cultural cohesiveness that the people of this less than mediocre country might elect Humpty Dumpty McCain to take his place. We are denying a recession, might elect McCain, are still killing off our military for our puppet presidents idea that everyone should be in a democracy, and oh yeah...still denying global warming. I don't know what to do, but I need to do something. If I have to try and have an intellectual conversation with another party-driven yahoo like I did, I might just pack the family up and move to anywhere but here. They have accounting and anthropology in lots of other countries....and at least I could hide from the crazies a little bit longer.