While having 'right to life' talking points stabbed into my brain..

[peace13]

I made a comment that took their breath away! This weekend I was with my quilter friends of twenty years. We come in various shapes and sizes and selected religious backgrounds. For some reason the discussion of abortion and federal dollars came up with all of the hushed voices and somber mightier than thou that goes along with such conversations. I chimed in, 'Stop right there with your comments. For over eight years this country has used my tax dollars to wage a war that has killed innocent children, women and men and has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of American soldiers in the process. All of this blood that was shed rests squarely on my shoulders and no one gives a damn about that. Don't use tax dollars and abortion in the same sentence again!" The conversation stopped and they looked at me with big eyes and by golly that was the end of it. For a minute there I thought that they could feel my pain. Being the resident peace-niq is exhausting sometimes but I do believe that they got the message. Never give up folks.

[uberblonde]

1. Yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

[daleanime]

2. Good for you, glad you could make them listen for a minute..

doesn't feel like we have to speak a hundred times to be heard once?O8)

[zorahopkins]

3. Not Only That....

Good for you!

I also lilke to point out to my right-wing acquaintances that my tax money goes to support the growing of tobacco here in the US, and poppies in Afghanistan. Tobacco and poppies produce two of the most addictive substances known, and those substances have killed millions of people.

[HughMoran]

4. Good for you

I wish more people would stand on their convictions and make sound, logical arguments versus angry emotional retorts.

[NoNothing]

5. I doubt they were feeling your pain

So much as shocked by your rudeness. Expressing your point of view and giving them something to think about is a great idea. Changing the subject is also acceptable. Demanding that they shut up in your presence is a good way to not get invited to any more events and reaffirm that people with your point of view are jerks.

Everybody should remember, you don't have to respect other peoples' crazy ideas, but you still have to respect them as people if you want to change their minds.

[peace13]

7. Thanks for sharing.

Those of us who didn't want our government to wage illegal wars have shut up quite enough thank you. As I stated that we have been together for twenty years. I don't think that they will un-invite me. I'm not afraid of that at all.

[NoNothing]

8. I don't think *anyone* should shut up

I tend to react badly to requests that I do so myself, and so I am sensitive about making the same demands of others. I'm just imagining myself in a similar situation - I'd find it very rude if one of my friends demanded I not speak my opinions in his presence. On the other hand, I wouldn't think it rude at all if he expressed strong disagreement with my views.

[peace13]

10. I did not say shut up.

I'm sorry if you misread what I wrote. I hope your day goes better. I send love and understanding to you. Peace, Kim

[BlueIris]

11. Spare us the sanctimonious garbage, please.

We all make our own decisions about how best to conduct ourselves and how best to make a point, whether it changes anyone's mind or not.

And take off that Self Appointed Gate Keeper hat. This isn't Daily Kos.

[susanna]

12. Yet it's okay for the group to bring up abortion in mixed company?

R-iii-ght. I see.

Good for the peace13, says I. If you want to bring up politics, religion, sex, money or abortion, you deserve every dressing-down you get. Once upon a time, parents taught their children not to raise such topics in polite company, as they serve to do nothing but raise divisions amongst otherwise friendly people. The people who originally brought up such a divisive topic need some manners training, NOT peace13, IMHO.

[AnArmyVeteran]

13. I didn't detect 'rudeness', but rather someone passionately telling the truth...

By saying 'stop right there' isn't like telling them to shut the fuck up. It didn't sound to me like the OP yelled at them.

I believe in conversations where all participants are respectful and open to an equal exchange of ideas. Even if the original OP did present his words in an abrupt manner I can see why. We have tolerated the assaults against our freedoms, wars, intrusions by government, torture, killing of 5,000 of our soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and a massive deficit all supported and cheered on by conservative extremists and religious right fanatics. They had eight years to bath in all the horror they brought to the world and I believe they should be told THEY are responsible for it. But they don't care about the carnage they supported. They don't care about the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis they caused. After all, the people they killed were Muslims. You can bet your life that if Iraq was inhabited by primarily Christian people the Bush Regime would never have gotten the support they did.

It's about time we inform those who are all participants in the evil violence and attacks against people inside and outside our borders that they are responsible. It's time we educated them what the consequences of their irresponsible actions were. The blood of hundreds of thousands is on every right winger who mindlessly voted for Bush, especially in the 2004 election. But right wing Christians don't give a damn about the qualifications of any candidate. ALL they care about is if the person is prolife. That is their only requirement. Look at Bush. He was totally incompetent through life, as governor and as president but they still idolize him. In the 2000 campaign Bush made a point during a debate by saying his greatest philosopher was Jesus. That's all it takes to dupe a religious fanatic into voting for you. It doesn't matter if you never walked in the footsteps of Jesus or lived by any of his teachings. It doesn't matter if you start a war based on obvious lies against a county which never threatened us.

[NoNothing]

14. Fair enough

I read the "don't ever talk about ___ again" somewhat differently than everyone else, I gather.

[peace13]

16. 'Don't use tax dollars and abortion in the same sentence again'

My point was that people use the fact that tax dollars kill the unborn babies and in reality tax dollars also kill children and women and men and soldiers. I was forceful because I want them to remember that the next time they talk about abortion and tax dollars they will be reminded that they were good with killing fully formed people with....well tax dollars.

[AnArmyVeteran]

18. Once out of the womb, Pro-Lifers seem totally unconcerned with people...

There is another thread on this side about a mother with 12 children. I responded to it with this comment:

"Where in the hell are the pro-lifers? Shouldn't they be oozing out of the woodwork to provide food, shelter and physical assistance for this mother? Pro-lifers are opposed to sex education so they, by default, are promoting sexual ignorance. Maybe if this mother had real sex education she would understand what happens when she mates with a man.

Pro-lifers have huge rallies, they put thousands of crosses on their church lawns, they spend huge amounts of money and they even assassinate doctors, so is it unreasonable to expect their help for this mother of 12? She should be one of their heroes and prime examples of how good the pro-life movement is."


I haven't heard or read from one pro-lifer who has condemned Bush's wars or the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and 5,000 American soldiers killed. They have no problem with our tax dollars being used to build weapons to kill or on wars against countries which never threatened us. By the time the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are over and our last soldier comes home we will have spent at least two trillion dollars. Since pro-lifers are mostly conservatives, they hate our resources going to help the poor or even women with small children. But they seem to love using money to kill, maim and destroy since they always vote for candidates who love spending unlimited amounts of our TAX DOLLARS on weapons and wars.

(BTW, even after the last soldier comes home from the Middle East the US will keep spending billions there, all money that could go to help people rather than kill them.)

[peace13]

20. So true.

We had a memorial to the American soldier in our yard from December 2005 until May 2009. Early on when the count was at about 1500 we had a TV crew in the yard filming for a segment on the news. This woman driving a station wagon pulled in the driveway and started yelling at the film crew that they should instead be doing a segment on all of the babies that are killed in this country before they are born. I didn't see one child seat in her car and that really struck me. If she felt so passionately about abortion, where were the little ones that she was willing to take care of? Go figure!

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. Bullshit.

OP was NOT telling them to 'shut up' - and I have to wonder why you are framing it that way - but telling them there is an corollary to their own twisted ideology, where they bitch about a minuscule portion of THEIR tax money going to a legal medical procedure while a far far larger portion is going to funding of illegal wars and the killing and crippling of hundreds of thousands.

Such persons NEED to be shocked, but the shock is in the numbers, not in the speech which lays it out. Anyone who complains about rudeness in hearing facts is hiding an agenda behind the complaint.

[AnArmyVeteran]

24. Remember scenes of someone slapping another's face and saying "Snap out of it!" ?

That's how I want to approach right wingers sometimes. I wonder what in the hell will shock them out of their delusions and get them back into the real world. They seem to be addicted to ignorance. They crave it. They long for it. Yes, 'long' for it. I don't have to look any further than my own family to see Foxaholics. My sister is especially an OReilly addict. She can't wait to see him again. It's like she is a love struck teenager eagerly waiting to hear from her beloved Bill. But what's different is my sister is longing for her next feeding of hate, while the teenager is longing for love.

How do you put the stupidity in them to sleep, and wake them in a world of reality?

[Dappleganger]

19. OK, so next time she should just sit and take in all their RW garbage like a sheep.

You think it's disrespectful to be outraged by the atrocities of war?? Even an unjust, invalid war not approved by the Constitution??


That's disgusting!

[AnArmyVeteran]

6. I'm glad you could 'show them the light', I'm facing the same problem with Christians in my life...

I know a few Christians who listen to right wing radio and watch Fox News. There is no way of communicating with them on any level. They are only capable of parroting what they hear from the right wing hate machine. I have no idea how any real Christian can go to church once a week to (hopefully) listen to a message about God's (Jesus's) love and then sit in front of their radios for 40 hours a week filling their minds full of hatred, anger, racism, lies and fear. They reek of hypocrisy, but they believe they are always 100 percent right. There is no room for doubt. No grey. It's all black & white.

I believe no one can be a 'Christian' and a conservative extremist who listens to right wing media. They believe in totally opposite things.

[peace13]

9. It is a very strange phenomena.

My mother is one of those folks of which you speak. She thinks that my home is full of hate because we speak out against her wars. She was dented by 911, becoming very fearful and now she clings desperately to her * style government. She hates Obama and believes all that FOX has to offer. We have tried to help her understand that FOX will not give her the answers but she refuses to listen. Nothing that the English language has to offer has sunk in.

[AnArmyVeteran]

15. Your story about your mother is not uncommon...

When my mom's mental and physical conditions began to fade she was forced to watch Fox by my right wing older sister. Eventually my mom who used to be fiercely independent and middle of the road was wore down by the constant hate, fear and lies from Fox. I believe a person has to be mentally vulnerable or have a predisposition to conflict to be attracted to Fox News or right wing radio in the first place.

I look at people who have fallen victim to the right wing drumbeat of hatred as members of a cult. They have all the signs of cult members. They live in a world of absolutism. There are no grays, only black & white. It's a great world for those who don't want to spend time thinking or looking for the truth. If conservative extremists actually tried to look for the truth they wouldn't hold their radical positions any longer. But then their 'perfect world' would come crumbling down around them. So they protect their beliefs and enforce them further by watching more and more Fox and listening to more right wing radio.

There are good organizations (1) which reprogram members of cults to bring them back to reality. Maybe you could get your mom the treatment she needs from one of them. I wish you well...



(1) Of course a right winger would call it an Obama reeducation camp.

[peace13]

23. Someday a research project will be done on how FOX manipulated people's minds

and destroyed what was left of our country.

[Control-Z]

21. Thank you, thank you.

What you did was courageous and heroic, imo. This is coming from a woman who feels inadequate lately, when it comes to discussing choice. I feel like I've said it all before so many times - that I sound like a broken record. But, you know what? I do have very positive results when it comes to one on one discussions. Off the top of my head, I can't remember anyone in the past 10 years who has not come around to agreeing with my POV, on at least some level.

If only I could have successes with groups like I have with individuals... But, I think it is the intimacy of those conversations that work for me - where I am comfortable and willing to consider (and respond to) the specific prejudices and concerns of the person I am speaking with.

I fear that my anecdotal and (highly) emotional arguments would just be embarrassing in a group setting.

Or it may be that I am just afraid of being piled on by a group.

[peace13]

22. It is hard to have any impact large or small these days.

On the war issue I pretty much tell people that the blood is on me and you and we will all pay for our part in this war. That really gets them crazy. No way are they responsible for killing one innocent Iraqi. I just don't see how people can live their lives with such huge disconnects.

On the abortion issue all I can say is that those who oppose it have had years and years to get education, adoption services and housing for mothers set up. By now we should have the world's best system for finding love for unwanted children and support for women who are having children that they can't keep but are willing to bare. Instead we have nothing but abstinence and moral finger wagging. If they really cared about the babies we would be at such a different place with our services.

Thanks for your kind words and keep up the good work. Peace, Kim

[Rainngirl]

25. I support you wholeheartedly!

I, too, and extremely tired of the angry stupid people throwing out the various crap they parrot from the evil, greedy instigators on Fox and running away without any facts or common sense with which to back it up.
I recently let loose on Facebook on the teabaggers. I'm pretty sure I lost a friend in the bargain, but she started it with a snarky sarcastic statement about "dems being so perfect and never doing anything wrong, blah blah blah." That was the straw that broke me. I won't stay silent any longer in the face of willful ignorance. They have the right to exhibit all the ignorant garbage they want, but I also have the right to challenge them. Whether they "get" it or not is irrelevant. I see it sort of like staying quiet in the presence of racist comments. It HAS to be challenged and countered, in my opinion.

[peace13]

26. Thanks for that.

It looks like we may lose a few friends along the way but at least we will be able to live with ourselves! 'Angry stupid people' I think you nailed it there!