Conversation with my conservative Republican father....

[Celista]

$57 is not $5 billion dollars. I understand that they are proportionally similar to the budgets described, but we wouldn't be in such massive debt as a country if we took our fiscal budgets more seriously. Just because there is a lot of money in the federal budget doesn't mean that we should piss money away on things that will be ineffective.

Honestly we would be far better off as a country if we asked "will this money be effective at solving x problem, why or why not, and what would this money be better used for?" for every federal budget expenditure.

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)_/¯

So leave and don't enable his behavior.

[cubby]

$57 is not $5 billion dollars. I understand that they are proportionally similar to the budgets described, but we wouldn't be in such massive debt as a country if we took our fiscal budgets more seriously. Just because there is a lot of money in the federal budget doesn't mean that we should piss money away on things that will be ineffective.

Honestly we would be far better off as a country if we asked "will this money be effective at solving x problem, why or why not, and what would this money be better used for?" for every federal budget expenditure.

I could not agree more. Casting aside $5B to address a temper-tantrum is NOT a fiscally sound solution. Even if it was "just" $5M. Every dollar.

So leave and don't enable his behavior.

Agreed. Time to go.

[DocSavageFan]

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.

Woosh. Your post is rich with irony.

57/44070 ~= 5.6B/4.407T

[Endus]

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.

There's nothing "self-righteous", and what he's taking issue with is his dad being divorced from reality. It isn't a difference of opinion. His dad is either a liar himself, or gullible and naive enough to pass along other people's lies without bothering to check their accuracy first. Either way, worth condemning, right there, on that merit alone.

Woosh. Your post is rich with irony.

57/44070 ~= 5.6B/4.407T

Yes, that's the misleading equivalence that his propaganda piece used, which entirely missed the relevant points of the actual issue.

And that, like Trump, the dad in the example was vastly underselling the actual cost of the fence/wall. Which you seem to have missed. Even though several of us pointed it out already. The wall is going to cost far more than $5.7 billion. That's the first installment.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

On my dad's side we have regular political debates and they are always good fun and entertaining and we keep them civil. We're a political mix but for the most part more on the moderate side, nobody would really qualify as far right or left. There is one person who's fully on the Trump bandwagon but they don't really participate anymore since jumping on when Trump first started running as they get picked apart by pretty much everyone including the other Republicans (who are the more traditional conservatives and do not care for Trump).

On my wife's side her immediate family is similar, pretty purple, but her extended family (who there are a lot of, Polish Catholic farm families) are all from solid Trump country and they all sit around and have echo chambers about how great Trump is for everything. They don't speak to me since I pointed out all the flaws with the Wall and the pointlessness of his 'accomplishment' of backing out of the Paris Climate Accord.

[Deus Mortis]

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 family is more important than trying to win an argument. I have family that are complete opposites on the political spectrum, we all know it so we don't discuss it when we are together. Instead we enjoy food and talk about the other million things there is to talk about. When you only see certain family members once a year or once every two years why waste it getting into arguments that is going to sour the mood.

PS: Stay away from facebook, it does not help anything, you see friends and family post garbage that follows their echo chamber. Try not to let it get to you, if it really gets to you block him or remove him from facebook, it is not worth ruining your mood and day.

[Thirza]

I'll be honest gaymer, I don't speak to the people that I know voted for trump anymore.

It really is all the sweeter when they leave pleading calls and texts for my attention.

[kail]

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

I mean my great grandfather was a Nazi. He's long dead though. OK or not OK, it's just the way it is. If he were still alive, wouldn't have much to talk about with him.

As for that FB post, who can I call for a $57 fence?

[cubby]

Why would anyone want to be around "family" like that? It's mind boggling to me that the answer seems to be to ignore the disgusting for reason. Maybe call them out on their bullshit and if they get mad seems like people you dont want or need.

Agreed. Family doesn't mean we ignore their horrific points of view. The Trumpkins on this site generally ignore the WWII Nazi analogy, but it fits perfectly.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean my great grandfather was a Nazi. He's long dead though. OK or not OK, it's just the way it is. If he were still alive, wouldn't have much to talk about with him.

As for that FB post, who can I call for a $57 fence?

I don't tend to hold anyone accountable for their ancestors - it's almost logically impossible to do so. It's what currently family thinks and does. And Trump is now beyond "political differences" - he has become a moral line in the sand.

[Blur4stuff]

Seems like a really shortsighted argument to make. A dem president could turn around and propose spending 5b on just about anything and claim it's only a small part of the budget so why fight it.

Maybe a program to teach red state children the virtues of not eating meat or something. I'm sure that would be okay.

[Molis]

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.

Dont speak your mind people. Do not challenge authority. Do not come up with new ideas.

Thats what I get from your opinion.

[Adapter]

Dont speak your mind people. Do not challenge authority. Do not come up with new ideas.

Thats what I get from your opinion.

You missed the part where the guy is speaking with his father and not every person on earth.

[Drutt]

Since this money is apparently so insignificant and people sharing this argument seem to feel the money has no real value, I propose they put their money where their mouth is by sending me a check for the to-scale $57.

[NM 156]

Don't friend you family on social media and when you see them over holidays just say what they want to hear. It makes for a much easier life.

[Felya]

That analogy he used was piss poor. Besides the jones were gonna pay for the fence. Kinda like trump forgot that mexico was going to pay for the wall. Trump could've tackled it in a number of ways.
1. Taxing latin america wire transfers
2. Nafta (that ship sailed)
3. Encouraging mexico to enforce it's own immigration laws so caravans don't make it here.

All of these trump failed to do. Now the kids Ain't eating since the dad is an awful leader.

That was on his campaign page, but was removed shortly after he won.

[Anevers]

Thankfully my parents and I have similar political views. Though my grandmother is starting to act like a bit of a loon since 2016...I may have to go over and enable the parental controls and block Fox News.

[Grapemask]

My mom is deeply conservative and hates Donald Trump, but she tends to side with him on some of the more racially-charged things. I haven't talked to her about the wall, but I feel there's a 60% chance she may support it.

My father is a liberal, but he's pretty casually racist and a firm Trump supporter especially on the racial issues. I wouldn't be surprised if he's running around yelling about a "Schumer Shutdown."

I avoid talking politics with my parents at all costs. It'll never end well.

[Spectral]

I don't think you meaningfully addressed the core of his analogy. Whether you think there's a better way to spend the analogized $57, quibbling over $57 in the context of a $44K budget would seem obviously insane to anyone observing it. The heart of the analogy is pointing out that there's no way the argument could possibly be about the money in any meaningful sense when it's simply too little to matter in the larger budgetary picture. On the specifics, there's a ton that's obviously wrong with your individual points:

(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.

To the extent that there's a problem here, it's a result of waste, corruption, administration, and sinecures. The United States already outspends every OECD country except Luxembourg. Within the United States, there is little or no link between school spending and student performance, with notable examples such as Utah being the lowest spending state but performing well, while districts like LA Unified and DC spend staggering amounts to get terrible results. Teachers aren't at fault for this, there's only so much they can do for students that come from horrible homes, but throwing more money at it isn't likely to move the needle.

More money should be given to these overworked and underpaid people.

Teachers are objectively not overworked. Per BLS data, teachers work ~38 hours/week, which isn't overworked by any reasonable standard. The average cash compensation is ~$60K per the NEA, which doesn't strike me as underpaid, although your opinion may differ. You're going to have a tough time getting much sympathy from people that have spent time as postdocs or working any sort of blue collar job though. For most people, $60K for a 38 hour/week job with strong benefits and time off is going to sound pretty good.

There's a reason why America is behind nearly every other industrialized nation in the world in terms of education.

This is simply false. The United States isn't behind "nearly every other industrialized nation", instead it continues to produce a high quality labor force with strong education. What we do have is a highly unequal set of results, but that shouldn't really be all that surprising given the racial and cultural diversity in the United States. Looking at PISA scores by race, white students in the United States are behind only Singapore, Japan, Estonia, and Taiwan worldwide for science literacy (feel free to use a different PISA measure if you prefer, you'll see about the same thing). Hispanic students do about as well as Iceland or Israel. Black students do about as well as Romania or Turkey. To the extent that there's a problem, it's a story of the underperformance of black students relative to the national norm, but there's really nothing at all that would suggest that more federal dollars pumped into failing (expensive) city schools are likely to mitigate that problem. If anyone had a good idea for how to close that gap, we'd be trying it.

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.

This closing polemic sounds compelling, but it avoids the basic facts - the wall isn't enough to make a dent, we already spend a fortune on schools, and that fortune is evidently being misspent. This is not a compelling argument.

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 don't generally get into heated arguments at all. I don't think it pays off. I certainly wouldn't do so on Facebook with anyone I care about where tone is lost and the medium isn't really conducive to making coherent arguments. I actually think the argument that you listed above probably doesn't deserve much more than an eyeroll emoji from your dad since you wrote polemics that lack supporting evidence and that still fail to address the core point that $5.7 billion isn't meaningful in the context of the federal budget.

[avitush]

Most of my family and friends have pretty similar political views, so I've rarely ever had that problem.

[Endus]

I don't think you meaningfully addressed the core of his analogy. Whether you think there's a better way to spend the analogized $57, quibbling over $57 in the context of a $44K budget would seem obviously insane to anyone observing it. The heart of the analogy is pointing out that there's no way the argument could possibly be about the money in any meaningful sense when it's simply too little to matter in the larger budgetary picture.

And, as several of us have pointed out, this is an entirely dishonest framing of the issue. The issue is not the specific price tag; it isn't about the $5.7 billion. It's about what they want to spend that money on. Democrats are opposing the construction of the wall on grounds of ethics, responsibility, and policy. The price tag is completely secondary, other than in the narrow use of determining what gains are to be secured for that investment, which are minimal and thus the spending is itself wasteful.

We know the core of the analogy, and that core is dishonest, hence our dismissal of the analogy.