Conversation with my conservative Republican father....

[gaymer77]

So my dad posted this gem on Facebook earlier this morning. It really triggered me (as do most of his political posts since we are basically polar opposites politically). I'll post the conversation and then open it up to discussion

(him) A husband and wife were having a major argument about their annual household budget. This year, it happened to be $44,070.

The argument started over a one-time $57 expenditure for the back yard. It got to the point where the wife finally looks towards the husband says, "Okay. Nobody in this house will eat, work, or get their weekly allowance until you get rid of that ridiculous notion of spending that $57." The kids groaned and blamed their dad.

The husband finally asks his wife, "What's wrong with erecting a $57 fence around our back yard to make our family more safe? Why don't you want our family to be more safe?"

She replied, "No reason. It's just because you're the leader of this household and we don't like you."

$57 out of a $44,070 budget...
That's 1 tank of fuel for your pickup truck through the entire year.

This is exactly what Chuckie Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are doing to their constituents: using them as pawns in their attempt at a power grab

(me) Interesting how this shutdown started while Republicans had control but you're blaming Democrats for it....Also the money could be spent better elsewhere which is what the Democrats have been saying.

(him) They control the budget now. Spent better where?

(me) Education, healthcare, on the vets...anywhere but a damn wall.

(one of my friends who is also friends with him) The initial request was for $1.6 and $1.3 was approved. This isn’t about a wall, it’s about 2020.

(him) 1. Education is funded at the state level via county property taxes.

2. The VA has already been fully-funded, as has all of the military.

3. Healthcare is an individual's issue, not the federal government's.

(me) 1. The education system is underfunded even in affluent areas. Teachers are being required to supply their own classroom supplies across the country every single day. I have several teachers who are friends who live in California and other states. Every single one of them has said the same thing many times over the years they have been teaching and that is how they are only given very little money for classroom supplies and once that money is up THEY have to pay for stuff out of their own pockets. More money should be given to these overworked and underpaid people. There's a reason why America is behind nearly every other industrialized nation in the world in terms of education. If there is money for a damn wall, there is enough money that can be given to schools to better equip educators to do their damn job without having to pay for shit themselves. Educators should not have to pay for supplies themselves and send home at the beginning of the school year a shopping list for parents to get for their kid to turn in to the teacher so the classroom can have supplies.

2. The VA is UNDER funded not FULLY funded. Have you ever tried to use your VA benefits to be seen for something? I doubt it because had you, you would be agreeing that the VA needs more money. Did you forget about numerous articles about the long waiting times to be seen or get something approved (we're talking years in some cases)? And its not just the VA that is the problem. How many of the homeless population are vets? A good portion of them. Once the military is done using them, vets are tossed aside and not given a second thought. One of the biggest arguments you wall supporters who are anti-immigration give is how we need to take care of our own first before trying to help immigrants. THIS is what they are talking about. In fact, one of the biggest counter arguments you anti-universal healthcare people give is the VA and how horrible of a system it is & then say how people have to wait years to get surgeries in Canada (another myth that has been debunked but you guys like saying it still). If there's money for a wall, there's money to help vets.

3. Healthcare is a society's issue not just an individual issue. When you have people dying because they can't afford life-saving medical treatment then there's a problem with the society you live in. There is absolutely no reason what so ever that a nation as rich as this country is to NOT offer basic healthcare at no cost to it's citizens. We are one of the few industrialized nations to NOT offer it. Contrary to what you and other anti-universal healthcare people believe, nations that offer free healthcare to their citizens aren't going bankrupt and there aren't these years long waiting times for procedures to be done. France has had universal healthcare since 1945. Germany has the world's oldest national healthcare system dating back to 1883. The Netherlands has had a system in place since 1941. The UK has had something in place since 1911 for employed people and 1946 everyone. Notice a trend here? None of these countries are bankrupt yet offer healthcare to their citizens. If there's money for a damn wall there's money to cover the citizens of the USA for healthcare.

4. The Coast Guard (you know part of the military) went UNPAID as of this last Friday. Proof right there that the military isn't fully-funded.

Do any of you guys or gals get into heated discussions with your family over politics because you guys have such polar opposite opinions of them?

[Sunseeker]

No. I don't friend my family on facebook, and the one conservative friend I have I just block his posts from showing up because they're all idiotic garbage like this. Sure I'll talk to any reasonably level-headed conservative, even about the fucking Wall. They just seem to be quite rare.

Also, having actually built fences around people's homes, it costs several thousand dollars.

[Felya]

Yes, it ends when I started saying I am a republican and they are the democrats trying to destroy the country.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, having actually built fences around people's homes, it costs several thousand dollars.

Second thing on my list, once I get a job. Interview tomorrow, they contacted me. Wish me luck... first comes job, then comes new computer, then comes fence and then we adopt a stupid looking dog.

The fence is to keep the dog in, not to keep neighbors out. Figure I get that out if the way...

[draynay]

More like...

Husband - We need $800 to fix the fence
Wife - OK fine.
Husband - Nevermind I need $3000 to build a new cooler fence my friend just told me about, and if you say no I'll quit my job and we'll all starve.

[Cthulhu 2020]

More like...

Husband - We need $800 to fix the fence
Wife - OK fine.
Husband - Nevermind I need $3000 to build a new cooler fence my friend just told me about, and if you say no I'll quit my job and we'll all starve.

This is what I was gonna point out. In the analogy, the fence won't cost $57 (i.e. $5 billion). The initial $5 billion is for the early planning stages and some small segments of the wall. The overall wall is estimated to cost anywhere from 15-20 times as much as that initial $5 billion. Plus the father wants one of those white picket fences, you know, something for decoration. Not something that will actually keep anyone safe. It's a feel-good wall and a massive waste of money that will cost us constant upkeep, and a decade or two after it's built we would just tear it down out of shame anyway.

[Mekkle]

My dad is a conspiracy theorist who thinks autism and mental illness is just a cry for attention. Thinks me and my fellow millenials are gonna be the end of this country. We share the same house and any discussion with him on politics usually ends in something getting broken/getting death-threats.

No one here likes him but he helps pays the bills so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Endus]

(him) A husband and wife were having a major argument about their annual household budget. This year, it happened to be $44,070.

The argument started over a one-time $57 expenditure for the back yard.(1) It got to the point where the wife finally looks towards the husband says, "Okay. Nobody in this house will eat, work, or get their weekly allowance until you get rid of that ridiculous notion of spending that $57."(2) The kids groaned and blamed their dad. (3)


The husband finally asks his wife, "What's wrong with erecting a $57 fence around our back yard to make our family more safe? Why don't you want our family to be more safe?"(4)


She replied, "No reason. It's just because you're the leader of this household and we don't like you." (5)


$57 out of a $44,070 budget...
That's 1 tank of fuel for your pickup truck through the entire year. (6)


This is exactly what Chuckie Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are doing to their constituents: using them as pawns in their attempt at a power grab (7)

I just wanted to break down the bullshit for my own sake.

Items numbered in the above for reference.

1> The wall isn't a one-time expense; it will require ongoing maintenance and manning. And no fence is gonna run you $57 goddamned dollars, even if you build it with your own two hands. Right here, your father's bullshitting to make the cost seem less than it is.

2> It's the dad (Trump) who made this ultimatum, in reality. There was a no-wall budget with bipartisan support, Trump refused to sign it. Straight-up lie, here. Democrats are refusing to be bullied into acting against their principles by this threat, so he gets the whole thing backwards.

3> Most of the "kids" (Americans) correctly blame the dad (Trump). The few are so blinded by pointless hero-worship that dad could punch momma's teeth out for talking back to him, and they'd cheer him on and blame her for setting him off.

4> What's "wrong" is that A> there's already fencing, B> there's no real threat to be "safe" from, and C> the proposed fence is a 4' chainlink fence that anyone could climb anyway. So everything, basically. And the mom isn't saying they can't spend money on security, she's saying a fence won't stop a break-in, an alarm system might, though. So maybe spend the money there, instead.

5> There's plenty of reasons. Being a shit and ignoring them is bad faith.

6> Again, nobody's issue is the $5.7 billion in spending, in terms of dollar value. The issue is what it's being spent on.

7> Again, completely reversed from reality.

This is why it's hard to talk to conservatives about this stuff. They make shit up and pretend their imagination is reality. You can't discuss something with someone like that.

[Edge-]

More like...

Husband - We need $800 to fix the fence
Wife - OK fine.
Husband - Nevermind I need $3000 to build a new cooler fence my friend just told me about, and if you say no I'll quit my job and we'll all starve.

Husband - I'm going to build a fence and our neighbor will pay for it.
Wife and kids - Ok, sounds good!
Husband - Actually, we're going to have to pay for it but it'll be cheap. That's still fine, right?
Wife - Uh...that's not what you said, but as long as it's not too expensive I guess.
Kids - YEAH, FENCES!
Husband - Alright, remember how I said it would be cheap? Well, it's actually not that cheap and we're still paying for it.
Wife - But honey, we can't afford to waste money. And we don't even really need the fence, our neighbors are the least of our problems right now given how our house has fallen into disrepair and that's caused friction for us and the HOA. We need to deal with these things first, because this isn't at all what you said it would be.
Kids - YEAH, FENCES!
Husband - THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN, WIFE. WE SHALL HAVE THIS FENCE OR I WILL NOT PAY OUR WATER OR ELECTRIC BILLS UNTIL YOU AGREE TO LET ME SPEND MONEY ON THIS EXPENSIVE FENCE!
Wive - You can't be serious honey...
Kids - YEAH, FENCES!
Husband - SEE, THEY SPOKE! NO WATER OR POWER UNTIL WE GET THE FENCE!

[Stormspark]

So my dad posted this gem on Facebook earlier this morning. It really triggered me (as do most of his political posts since we are basically polar opposites politically). I'll post the conversation and then open it up to discussion















Do any of you guys or gals get into heated discussions with your family over politics because you guys have such polar opposite opinions of them?

No. Because if anyone said stuff like that to me I would immediately cut them completely out of my life.

[Xeones]

(him) A husband and wife were having a major argument about their annual household budget. This year, it happened to be $44,070.

The argument started over a one-time $57 expenditure for the back yard. It got to the point where the wife finally looks towards the husband says, "Okay. Nobody in this house will eat, work, or get their weekly allowance until you get rid of that ridiculous notion of spending that $57." The kids groaned and blamed their dad.

The husband finally asks his wife, "What's wrong with erecting a $57 fence around our back yard to make our family more safe? Why don't you want our family to be more safe?"

She replied, "No reason. It's just because you're the leader of this household and we don't like you."

$57 out of a $44,070 budget...
That's 1 tank of fuel for your pickup truck through the entire year.

This is exactly what Chuckie Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are doing to their constituents: using them as pawns in their attempt at a power grab

This is the kind of shit some of my family posts that is completely devoid of reality.

#1 and most importantly there is no fence that is going to cost 57 bucks for an entire yard. In fact if I were you I'd send my relative a link like https://www.target.com/p/north-state...E&gclsrc=aw.ds so they could see what kind of fence they can buy for $50.

#2 Comparing national finances to house hold finances is silly for republicans to do. Because their strategies applied to a household are essentially "A guy making a lot of money, lets say 100,000 gets himself into a lot of debt. He decides the best way to handle it is to quit his job go get a job at McDonalds making maybe 20k a year and live in a trailer eating ramen every night. Well even with lowering his cost of living his lowered income can barely cover that not to mention the debt payments." But nah they live in that never land where if we hand all our money to rich people everything magically gets better.

#3 a fence around your yard doesn't make you more safe. You get a fence to keep things in most of the time, and while from some perspective it's safety it's more containment.

#4 that line about the not liking him is staggeringly incompetent and if I ever saw anyone in my family post that I would be hard pressed not to tell them so.

#5 just link him a short video of Trump saying the shut down is his. Because it is his, he started it and every day it goes on it becomes increasingly that old fucking turtles fault. In no way shape or form can this be blamed on the side who wants to negotiate but is only being met with "5.7 nothing else!" They can't even talk about daca.

#6 Then there is the actual reality of how there are apparently still imminent domain cases from over a decade ago when Bush expanded the border fences. So we are looking at potentially 2 decades of legal battles over this stupid wall. 5.7 billion is not going to begin to scratch the cost. And he has no plan for a wall, at this point he is asking for money for a a mystery because no one has any clue what he wants to build.

[Nihilist74]

I hate republicans and their ideas, but there is so much of this crap going on in the news that I am sick of hearing about it. I'll worry about it when I vote. I do not want to waste time listening or arguing about this stuff.

[Forgettable]

I'll hire you to build a fence around my house for $57.

[Adapter]

Do any of you guys or gals get into heated discussions with your family over politics because you guys have such polar opposite opinions of them?

I learned approximately by mid 20s that nothing good ever comes out of "heated discussions" with family members.
Nothing. Nada.

[Gaidax]

OR you can just STFU and back off because arguing politics with parents beings nothing but misery. Smart people understand that.

As a side note, I personally don’t see anything wrong with what your dad posted. How politics is even involved there... what because it somehow notices some sort of barricade that it triggered you?

Guess it’s some sort of mental sickness pervasive to US residents where even most mundane things somehow end up involving politics bickering.

[Acidbaron]

I tend to cut discussions short when it starts to get too personal. I don't mind engaging with people of all sorts.

I however refrain from doing it on social media as i rather confront people directly and it shows how much they really know when i don't allow them the time to google for arguments. Sitting on the centrum-right, i often have heated debates with people far more on the left and far more on the right, both who's opinions are often heavily influenced by the party lines or rhetoric, i have to say every party is guilty of that, mine is setting up campaigns now with info sessions with the intend to supply us with good and correct arguments for the upcoming election.

Also you have to accept your father is old, you are not going to change his opinion and the chances are while benevolent how your efforts might be he even gets more rooted in it.

[Slant]

I just wanted to break down the bullshit for my own sake.

Items numbered in the above for reference.

1> The wall isn't a one-time expense; it will require ongoing maintenance and manning. And no fence is gonna run you $57 goddamned dollars, even if you build it with your own two hands. Right here, your father's bullshitting to make the cost seem less than it is.

2> It's the dad (Trump) who made this ultimatum, in reality. There was a no-wall budget with bipartisan support, Trump refused to sign it. Straight-up lie, here. Democrats are refusing to be bullied into acting against their principles by this threat, so he gets the whole thing backwards.

3> Most of the "kids" (Americans) correctly blame the dad (Trump). The few are so blinded by pointless hero-worship that dad could punch momma's teeth out for talking back to him, and they'd cheer him on and blame her for setting him off.

4> What's "wrong" is that A> there's already fencing, B> there's no real threat to be "safe" from, and C> the proposed fence is a 4' chainlink fence that anyone could climb anyway. So everything, basically. And the mom isn't saying they can't spend money on security, she's saying a fence won't stop a break-in, an alarm system might, though. So maybe spend the money there, instead.

5> There's plenty of reasons. Being a shit and ignoring them is bad faith.

6> Again, nobody's issue is the $5.7 billion in spending, in terms of dollar value. The issue is what it's being spent on.

7> Again, completely reversed from reality.

This is why it's hard to talk to conservatives about this stuff. They make shit up and pretend their imagination is reality. You can't discuss something with someone like that.

Btw, you're forgetting that the reason to built this fence is totally circumvented by him inviting his work buddies (Mexicans with work pemits for 6 months) into the home for dinner and them just never leaving again. The fence? Does nothing, since they enter through the yard gate with the knowledge of the dad.

[Fuiking]

I don't discuss politics with my parents. I'd rather not kill them just yet.

I do discuss politics with my family and siblings.. mostly to teach them about why FvD or PVV would be bad for them.

[Everwake]

Don't take it too much to heart. I've seen many family relationships ruined over petty stuff like politics, and years wasted.

[DocSavageFan]

Don't take it too much to heart. I've seen many family relationships ruined over petty stuff like politics, and years wasted.

Agree. It's not worth it...self-righteous hatred of other's viewpoints never ends well. It's OK for people to be different...even your family members.

[cubby]

Agree. It's not worth it...self-righteous hatred of other's viewpoints never ends well. It's OK for people to be different...even your family members.

So it's ok if your family members were Nazi's during WWII?

There is a line, regardless of family, that should not be crossed. Disagreeing about Bush or Obama or Bush or Clinton or Reagan is just fine - those are great family political discussions/arguments. Not Trump - criminal is the least label we can give him. Those that embrace the willful ignorance it takes to continually back a man who lies with every breath he takes is not someone you can "share" disagreements with.

I know you disagree, and you'll either ignore this or post more of your lies, but it's a pretty simple truth. One you'll never be able to understand. Because you've already chugged the kool aid and embraced the darkness that's required to back a criminal like Trump.