I've found "Shut up, you stupids" actually works pretty well when you are hosting.

There are people who think Michelle Obama is fat?

Okay...

I'd give a lot to have my Limbaugh-fan grandpa back so I could tell him what a moron Rush was.

Don't worry, I'd talk to him about other, important things too.

My favorite strategy is to point out that, with its forced revenue sharing, salary cap, and fact that the champion gets punished for its success with the last draft pick while the worst loser is rewarded with the first pick, the NFL is socialist.

Furthermore, if GM and Chrysler had not been bailed out there would be no more NASCAR, which is itself socialist what with the restrictor plates and all.

The conservatives on my wife's side of the family think condoms are sinful, all blacks are criminals, and being gay pisses off 'Christian' Jesus. Do you seriously think I am going to waste one minute of my time talking politics with such 'holy' and 'intelligent' people.

Might as well discuss Krebs Cycle with the cast of Freaks....



Me: The acetyl-CoA enters,,,,,
Them: One of us! One of us! Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble!

The only political argument I heard this holiday, my brother-in-law and my great aunt's boyfriend were talking about social security. Me, I just voiced my opinion that the greatest threat to social security was that the money wasn't going to Wall Street, and they hate that so much.

Best thing to do when someone says something completely stupid is to laugh, followed by something like "No, seriously though."

EnviroDude: DERRRRRRRRRRRRRP

Wow, that's a lot of retard in one post. Congrats.

Andromeda: Fark once pointed out to me engineers as a rule are quite conservative and against things they can't measure/experience themselves; there's probably a bit of truth to that.

Three engineers in my family. 3 for 3 POHR.
But two are atheists, which is weird. You expect some creationist farktardery from engineers.

EnviroDude:

C'mon. Get some new material or give it up. Test it out over at Reddit first.

Man, this article was hardly better than the stupid argument it purports to refute.

Seriously, though, the advice is not going to convince the Republican relative of anything. The advice is of the level of "The other side is bad, so vote Democrat". With the exception of the Obama's immigrant relatives, they points don't seriously challenge the right-wing family member to critically reevaluate their statement. You can get a lot more done by asking the right questions of the right-winger than you can by giving counter examples.

But that's a hard enough skill to acquire even before the Internet.

I love it!

When right-wingers argue their beliefs, it's "talking points". But, when Leftists are told what to say from articles and shiatty blogs like Talking Points Memo, well now, those aren't talking points at all.


The collective hypocrisy and stupidity of the Left will never cease to amuse me.

St_Francis_P: Let's get real. Is there anything you can say that will change their minds? You're competing against one of the finest spin machines ever fashioned by mankind.

This. I'm the first to admit my wrongs. Hell, it was one of the things my Dad taught me. "Own your mistakes, and you'll learn from them." My folks always did - until they became FOX acolytes.

I'm not gonna blow sun in my ass and claim perfection. I'm likely more wrong than I am right on most days. But I try to construct my accusations and claims based on things I can confirm and/or have been vetted by a convincing majority of people who approach problems as I do - puzzles to solve. Not rhetoric and grandstanding. When it's just a gut feeling I'll utter it, but not claim it as fact.

I'm an emotional guy. But not with politics, and certainly not with with accepted science. I want nuts and bolts. This doesn't play well at the dickfreckle homestead.

Holidays. Aaaaaaah - street valium and single barrel bourbon

Ed Willy: You can get a lot more done by asking the right questions of the right-winger

Exactly.
My favorite question, "If you get "prayer back in schools", which government official or department do you want to give the job to for writing the official school prayer? And what if they write a prayer that you don't approve of?"

"But I don't want an official school prayer!"

"So, you want to leave it up to the teacher. What if the teacher is a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, or Wiccan? Do you want them leading your children in prayer?"

"NO! There needs to be an approved of prayer that most Christians can agree on!"

"See first question."

/have had this very conversation....

Crude: When right-wingers argue their beliefs, it's "talking points". But, when Leftists are told what to say from articles and shiatty blogs like Talking Points Memo, well now, those aren't talking points at all.

I won't tell Bill O'Reilly if you won't.

/shhhhh.

Complete waste of time. You'd be better off trying to squeeze water from a rock.

You know the reason why you can't ever argue politics and religion? Because neither appeal to the better parts of human nature (namely logic and open-mindedness). In fact, both actually serve as a mental security blanket of sorts and help numb the pain of modern life.

It's important to realize one very crucial thing. Most people are not very happy because their lives are, by and large, a series of compromises and unmet expectations. Most will deny this, but Freud was absolutely right when he surmised that most people lead lives of quiet desperation.

Religion and politics help dull the brutish realities of the world we live in by providing answers and scapegoats. Upset that you've been backstabbed at the office by that slimy coworker who just got a promotion and a raise? Don't worry. God is watching and will punish him accordingly. Bitter that you're not married to a supermodel and swimming in pools of cash? It's those damn liberals and their taxation schemes! Once taxes are gone, all of your wildest dreams will come true!

The bottom line is that making any logical appeal to a part of the human psyche that's firmly rooted in base emotion is futile. Don't bother. Even if, by some miracle, you do have a breakthrough with that annoying uncle who won't shut the fark up about O's birth certificate, you can rest assured it'll be short lived.

TFA: But you will probably have better luck simply changing the subject. (Suggestions: Whether or not Peyton Manning will be a Colt next season, "

This actually smacks of the misguided idea that only conservatives love sports. Maybe I'm being too defensive (pun entirely intended), but some of Fark's most notorious liberals are regulars in the Sports tab. Even GAT hangs out there, though he whines too much. :)

But still, the writer does have a b*tchy point. Lots of people love sports. Let's talk about how the Falcons suck and just change the channel from FNC. If there is one thing we can agree on, it's football.

Yes Virginia, libtards love football too.

I tend not to debate things that hold importance to a person's life, character and self-image.

So, no politics and no religion. There is really no point; when you're debating a hardcore christian or a hardcore atheist you're not just debating their beliefs-- you're debating what is essentially part of a particular persons character, belief structure and way of life; how they see life and how they've always seen life. You aren't going to change that in a debate, and when a person gives way to your opinion he/she probably didn't give a rats ass about that belief anyway.

Forty years later, and we're still having "Archie Vs Meathead" arguments. Sigh.

Whizzy: I tend not to debate things that hold importance to a person's life, character and self-image.

So, no politics and no religion. There is really no point; when you're debating a hardcore christian or a hardcore atheist ...

Ahhh, the ol' false equivalency.

TV's Vinnie: Forty years later, and we're still having "Archie Vs Meathead" arguments. Sigh.

Yeah, but Carol O'Connor was a liberal playing an idiot. Yet lots of conservatives identified with his character.
This is another reason to laugh at them.

One thing that's always weird about conservatives is this.

Conservative: "I hear that Obama is a secret muslin commie who wants to feed aborted babies to our school children. I heard it on Limbaugh the other day."

Sane Person: "Oh that's BS! It was already debunked on DailyKOS."

Conservative: "A LIEberal web site. Pfft. Real credible source there!".

(Because you see, all Progressive sites are nothing but propaganda and conservative sites are the Truth from the Lord They God Hisself)

This is why it's pointless to argue/debate with conservatives. Just bust em upside the face and tell them to STFU. That's all the respect they deserve.

TV's Vinnie: One thing that's always weird about conservatives is this.

Conservative: "I hear that Obama is a secret muslin commie who wants to feed aborted babies to our school children. I heard it on Limbaugh the other day."

Sane Person: "Oh that's BS! It was already debunked on DailyKOS."

Conservative: "A LIEberal web site. Pfft. Real credible source there!".

(Because you see, all Progressive sites are nothing but propaganda and conservative sites are the Truth from the Lord They God Hisself)

This is why it's pointless to argue/debate with conservatives. Just bust em upside the face and tell them to STFU. That's all the respect they deserve.

No thinking person likes KOS. And it's tough to explain how you can be a libtard without reading it. Apparently KOS is where I get my material from.

The moral of the story?

Your blog sucks.

/rss feeds from multiple legit sources, dammit people
//am dumber/drunker than many of you and yet I manage this - wtf?
/libtard

wait, you need to be told what to say to talking points...by a talking points article?

that is pathetic. I dont care which side you are.

Stop playing it like its a football game and try LISTENING once in a while.

BOTH of you stupids....

Rhetorically, there's little difference from the shiat in the article and the shiat out of Limbaugh(et al)'s piehole.

I'm wondering when, if ever, the majority of us will realize that we've been sold down the river by this faux partisanship.

/here's a flag. go back to sleep

Forget KOS as a source, SNOPES is seen by many on the right as a total democratic party propaganda machine funded by A. Soros: B. the Obama Whitehouse: or C. A combination thereof?

If no one has seen it, there is an email floating out there claiming that Snope's owners/operators are "big time" Obama supporters and you can't believe a thing they say on their website. This despite the fact that they have never given a dime to ANY politician (you can check that out through the FEC website for yourself) and were around since the early days of the net long before most current politicians were even on the scene. But point those things out to the "true believers" and they still will denounce it as some Soros funded leftist propaganda device.

At what point are people going to wise up and realize that anyone who gets info from the likes of Hannity, Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter, et al isn't on an even enough keel to separate the wheat from the chaff and is going to cling to their alternative world view, actual facts be damned?