Posted on 07/24/2013 1:11:12 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I’ve had many infuriating conversations with my incredibly conservative, Republican stepdad. He’s laughed in my face for pointing out with facts the inadequacy of Mitt Romney during the 2012 election. We argued over the political reputation of Obama in 2008. We’ve also silently disagreed about immigration reform, birth control, gun control, and health care reform, because we both know how that conversation will end. Every time I turn on the television in his and my mother’s home it’s already on Fox News. Every time I get in his car the sexually frustrated, diabetic voice of Rush Limbaugh rattles the dash of the old pickup.
I’ve always just accepted his ignorance though. I stoke the fire every now and then out of boredom, curiosity, or just to give my mom an alternative opinion than the one of the man she lives with. But recently I hit a ceiling with LarBear (as I affectionately refer to my stepdad). Having grown up in Nashville, I never thought I would be reduced to tears out of sheer frustration after having a political conversation with a man raised in Philadelphia. But I was, and it was during a discussion of the Zimmerman verdict the day after it was announced.
This time I decided to come out of the gate swinging because I needed to take out my frustration with my country on someone close to me. In a rant that I’m sure my parent’s neighbors heard, I angrily listed all of the facts and then posed to them the question that I really did desperately need an answer to: How did this happen? I genuinely thought that LarBear might say something moderate about state’s rights and then pontificate on how my generation would have to save the future, and then I would be able to breathe a little easier knowing that it’s just Florida that needs to be sunk like the Titanic. Instead he gazed into his whiskey and refused to make eye contact.
“Do you not think it’s wrong?” I asked hoping he was just mulling over an eloquent way to communicate through our divide. “Well you know, you can’t make it about racial implications, Chloe.” I felt my face turn red. “You mean to say I can’t make it about race?” I asked starting to raise my voice, because nothing makes a racist more of a coward than using terms like “racial implications” when what they really mean is race, the color of someone’s skin. "Racial implications" are not a real thing — they’re an idea that makes racists feel better, an idea placing the emphasis on the thing that makes them uncomfortable rather than the fact that they are uncomfortable with it.
The rest of the exchange went as follows:
Larry: “Well there wasn’t enough evidence to determine if racial implications were involved."
Me: “That’s not even a real sentence. And Zimmerman’s crime and the trial is one giant racial implication. It doesn’t need evidence, it’s a matter of right and wrong.”
Larry: “It’s not politically correct to say racial implications played a part.”
Me: “It’s not politically correct to kill black children.”
I sat in my car crying because I was so mad at him and the situation in general. For as often as our political views don’t align, I’ve still always revered my stepdad as an intelligent man. But the argument we had went beyond anything intelligible. It was a feeling I had seen on television before in debates and on shows like Meet The Press, in which one addresses a conservative with facts and in return is met with complete nonsensical Fox News propaganda.
And that’s the problem with this country more than anything. There are no longer standards for productive discourse. Conservatives have been pushing forward legislation that is bigoted, racist, religious, and dangerous, and instead of having to articulately explain why it they want us to revert back to the 1700s, they start saying things that don’t make sense.
Which leads us to my ultimate, less important point: that HBO’s The Newsroom is a great show. It’s great for many reasons, one of which is that while you’re watching it you can pretend that there is actually some forum where Jeff Daniels holds corporations, legislators, and public figures responsible for their actions and statements. For me though, it was the first time I felt a unified notion of camaraderie with my fellow liberals, because even though it’s fiction, if this show has an audience then I’m not alone.
There’s a moment in season one where Sam Waterston is defending the show within the show to Jane Fonda, the head of the network. Fonda’s character is pissed that a show on her network is attacking the right wing nutjobs that fund the network and whom she has to directly do business with. She accuses the show of being biased to the left. Waterston’s character then has a brilliant response. He says that the show represents the center, because the center is neither left nor right, it is where the facts are.
This article was supposed to be more about The Newsroom and less about a conversation that I had, but that conversation I had is a prime example of why I think that The Newsroom is way more important than just a television show. Slowly the GOP is self-destructing, and with the potential for Texas’ next governor (or perhaps even the next president) to be a Democratic woman, it’s not far-fetched to say that the tides are changing. There will always be conservative fodder on TV for their followers to salivate over. But I can only hope that if such an ideal format for news exists in fiction, it won’t be long before broadcasting the actual news won’t be considered attacking the GOP — it will just be the news.
This is liberal tolerance in action. They "accept" the ignorance of us conservative yahoos.
Having grown up in Nashville, I never thought I would be reduced to tears out of sheer frustration after having a political conversation with a man raised in Philadelphia.
LOL. One of those enlightened Southerners who see everyone around them as ignorant, racist, inbred yahoos and dream of the Northern urban areas like New York and Philadelphia of being beacons of tolerance. I hate to burst this girl's bubble, but Frank Rizzo is from Philadephia. (So are a lot of us here on FR too.)
"About me:
Chloe Stillwell: Writer, witch, whiskey drinker."
Can’t she disagree with something Rush says without calling him sexually frustrated and diabetic?
This girl has major issues, in her view of the world, views of issues, and her view of those who are not as liberal as she is.
Her opiniont of her father in law is changed because she is so liberal, and she thinks conservative views are wrong? She won’t judge him on the content of his character, but on whether he watches Fox and listens to Rush? This is how she views the worthiness of people, by how liberal they are, or aren’t????? ..........................................
stunning........................................this
There is nothing more irritating about leftists than their penchant for pretending that ideological differences are actually differences in knowledge. They aren’t. And ironically, the author’s position on George Zimmerman demonstrates this. The facts don’t dictate the author’s position on the Zimmerman trial. Emotion does. The facts dictate precisely the opposite of the author’s position, and they support the jury’s verdict.
>> For me though, it was the first time I felt a unified notion of camaraderie with my fellow liberals, because even though it’s fiction, if this show has an audience then I’m not alone.
Heh. Since Duck Dynasty has a considerably bigger audience, maybe you’re more alone than you think.
SnakeDoc
Typical liberal nitwit. One day she will wake up and realize that “Stepdad” was right. I really wish she would do that sooner than later because she is really making an ass out of herself.
Mrs. 2ndDivisionVet attended Archbishop Ryan High School.
a 17 year old burglar is a "child"
but
someone who is 17 weeks in the womb is most emphatically not a child.
This is the logic we're dealing with here.
Typical liberal. Says her stepdad is intelligent but no way in hell she’s going to listen to him.
Talks about facts. Then wants to convict Zimmerman on what’s right or wrong.
Walking contradictions.
Is a 17 year old Soldier, Airman, Marine or Sailor a child, I wonder? Because 17 year olds have been fighting and dying for this country since the beginning.
Actually, if "The Newsroom" has an audience, it's fictional.
Where’s the Barf Alert?
It’s posted in Smoky Backroom and the headline should’ve warned you.
:: One day she will wake up and realize that “Stepdad” was right. ::
and on that morning she will reflect on the evening past where a lad, having imbibed of intoxicants (maybe Sizzurp) forced her into a dark place and, holding a knife to her throat, forced her to commit oral sodomy to satisfy his perception of “untouchable power” over “whitey”.
Was this written by a high school freshman?
Larry: “Well there wasn’t enough evidence to determine if racial implications were involved.”
Me: “That’s not even a real sentence.”
It’s slightly awkward, but it appears to be a real sentence.
Mad Men is about 2.5mm, so is Breaking Bad.
So in the lower range for "artsy" cable shows.
Compare this to basic cable's Rizzoli & Isles, for example, with about 5.5mm or NCIS with about 19mm.
You think that’s bad?
Jurors gave no credence to what led up to fight
As a man who has followed the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case from the killing through the entire trial, I am utterly incensed by the acquittal of Zimmerman. Hindsight is 20/20, but looking back at the six-female jury - five Caucasians, one Latina; five of them mothers; and none younger than in their 30s - the prosecution should have insisted on at least one African-American. Race ended up the trigger as feared.
While it’s clear that the prosecution’s presentation was miles away from being even close to a conviction for second-degree murder, surely the facts were there to warrant at least a manslaughter conviction. It’s evident that the jurors only considered the events at the actual confrontation between Martin and Zimmerman. They gave no credence to what led up to that fight. Martin, after getting snacks, was merely returning to his father’s condominium in the same complex which Zimmerman so proudly proclaimed himself neighborhood watchman.
Apparently in Florida it is now legal for a “wanna-be cop” (an apt prosecutorial description) to profile his “suspect” (repeatedly used in his police interrogations); give chase by following Martin in his truck until a confrontation occurs (evidenced by the taped conversation between Martin and horrendous prosecution witness Rachel Jeantel, where Martin screams to Zimmerman, “Get off me!”); here, the tape ends.
The brawl ensues and Zimmerman, regardless of the “Stand Your Ground” law, kills an unarmed African-American man. This is vigilante justice reminiscent of Wild West days. Trayvon Martin was on trial, not George Zimmerman.
Bobby Bourbeau
Kihei
Translated: I have renounced the Judeo-Christian ethic upon which this country was built, as well as the rule of law as codified by the US Constitution, and I grow angry when confronted with values I have rejected.
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