4. OMG! My Friend is a Moron.

  It's a jarring thing to find out that your friend is a moron. By friend, what I really mean here is a "peer". A peer is someone, who by any external observance, is "just like you". Maybe you grew up in the same town, went to the same schools, worship at the same place, go to the same restaurants, have mutual friends, shop at the same stores. Someone from a foreign country may not be able to tell any difference between you. What they don't know, however, is that you've seen your friend's postings on Facebook and you have found out, by virtue of his or her political affiliation, that they are sadly, a moron. So while you are the "same", you are very very different.

You

                                           

Moron

NOT a peer

  Part of the reason for this is that folks who would never think of talking politics at a dinner party with people they don't know, will not hesitate to post politically incendiary things on Facebook.  When you're confronted with someone having a radically different perspective than you, and you believe you're clearly NOT a peer, then you are not terribly surprised.

Peer

 The real problem occurs, however, when someone who really IS a peer 

sees the world very differently than you do.

A. Liberal (Left)   -   B. Conservative (Right)

 Baby "A", for instance, grows up to Occupy Wall Street. Baby "B" joins the Tea Party

What value you ascribe to either of these positions
will be determined by your political orientation.

Who's to say?

What set my mind to thinking about this was a column I read in the stupidly renamed Tampa Bay Times, formerly the St. Petersburg Times (renamed in a pathetic attempt to appear to be more "regional"). This column appeared in their free handout you'll see around town. It's called TBT and reprises articles that have already appeared in the paper. It's titled "You Can't Debate a Liberal". Before reading the article, you have instantly formed an opinion over whether or not you're going to like it and/or find any validity in it. I am not advocating its content, or arguing against it. What it did for me was open my eyes to the possibility that there are plenty of people who are NOT stupid, NOT evil, and NOT crazy (maybe even some of them are peers) who view the world very differently. I urge you to read this article with an open mind, think of some of your peers who look at the world very differently, try to empathize with their position, consider that it IS possible for reasonable people to have very different perspectives, and then (and only then) say "Oh my God, my friend is a moron".

Click here to read "You Can't Debate a Liberal"

Just in case that leaves your tutu too twisted, here's equal time for the other side :


Click here to read "Don’t Ever Debate a Conservative on His Terms.You’ll Lose!"