In dealing with family friends and family members that are loud and vocal and have wildly different feelings about politics than you do, I think it is worthy of a post to talk about it. Dealing with people of different political stances than you have is something that we should talk about, and this is an appropriate place for it. We want to be heard, and if there is anyone that we really want to listen to us, it is people that disagree with us. So, how do we do it?
My uncle is known to yell about "those Democrats" and lauds Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh and absolutely loves Bush and everything he does. The Republicans can do no wrong with him. My father took the route of placing plausible doubt into his mind. When he brings up Lars Larson my dad simply said, "I don't know if you can trust him, I think he skews the truth a little bit." And that was it. My uncle said "oh, I don't think so..." but he looked jostled.
I'm not saying I have all of the answers or that I agree with everything the Democrats do (a lot of them have really pissed me off in fact). What I am suggesting is that a good way to deal with people that you really disagree with is to just plant some seeds of doubt and let them do the rest of the work. If they do research and end up not changing their mind, at least you're encouraging some critical thinking. Arguing leads to people shutting off, it takes subtlety to reach people that are predisposed not to listen to the other side.
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Innominate.
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