I know I don’t have a good reputation for politeness, but finally I see some good advice from Miss Manners.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I know I don’t have a good reputation for politeness, but finally I see some good advice from Miss Manners.
I’m a big fan of “don’t ask the question if you don’t want the answer.”
There are so many reasons not to have voted for Tchump. It’s incredible that about half the registered voters didn’t vote to keep that bigoted ignoramus out of the Presidency.
What she’s really saying.
I think you mean eligible voters. A good chunk of those (maybe 25-30% give or take) are not registered in the jurisdiction where they are eligible to vote. Turnout is always higher among those who are registered.
Well, only Clinton’s ~25% (of eligible voters) tried to keep him out. The remaining ~75% didn’t, either by not voting or by voting badly.
The irony of glorifying political incorrectness, and then being anxious about how to be polite.
Even if this was sent to the real Miss Manners, I suspect the “nice” answer would still have been something along the lines of “if you don’t want to talk politics at a party then don’t bring it up.” Unfortunately I know a lot of people like this – they love to announce their political opinions as long as they think they’re among “friends” (i.e., people who agree or at least don’t have the guts to call them out on it), but if anyone has the temerity to advance a dissenting opinion they’re the ones being rude.
From SC’s link:
I had no idea that eating with your bigot relatives once a year, on a holiday which habitually whitewashes genocide of Native Americans, is “treating them with respect.” It’s like we’re speaking different fucking languages.
How do I respect and get along with people like SC? However it happens, it’s actually very easy and feels very natural, without having to think hard to convince myself of it. I don’t need to “restrain” myself in any way in order to do it. But somehow or another, it doesn’t require turkey or presumptuousness about how I should feel about my family or anything like that. For fuck’s sake, Miss Manners, is any of that supposed to be surprising? Is it shameful?
It’s incredible that Trump has a supermajority mandate, you mean.
Because the people who voted for him by marking his name on the ballot, the people who voted for him by marking a worthless third party candidate’s name on the ballot, and the people who voted for him by not showing up to vote at all, together, are at least 2/3, maybe 3/4, of eligible voters.
#3: Damn. Well then, all I can say is fuck Miss Manners.
:)
@3:
Of all the newspaper advice columns I’ve seen, Miss Manners always struck me as the most useless and vapid.
Yes, if only family dinners during the Civil War had been nicer, all that nastiness could have been avoided.
Not at all political.
@11: She has always insisted that people treat one another with respect and decency. She’s been vocally pro-gay for decades. And she’s witty as hell. There’s nothing useless or vapid about her.
Is… is this really a thing in 21st century America? Etiquette columns in newspapers?
I mean, yeah, in 1916 perhaps…
“What a shame that is,” said Martin, “because those are your relatives. Those are the people you presumably love at some level . . . ”
#7 on several levels you are right, but in my own extended family some things got said by various family members that revealed a previously unseen side.
This is part of my theory that most of the downright vile, filthy, nasty racists used to follow the rule of STFU and don’t reveal your nasty putrid fetid stinking outrageously filthy ugly side. But Drumpfh emboldened them to speak up out loud in the presence of others, so they gave away their true nature.
Seals the deal for me. GTFO from now on. Have no use for them. My wife even understands.
I think the notion that you have to like people in your family because they are family is flawed. If you do like your family, that’s great, but it isn’t a problem if you don’t. My family is a mixed bag. Some of them I like very much. Some of them I don’t like being around because they express their bigotry a lot. I’m not interested in that, so I’m not much for being with them.
Here’s an example of what I get: In the summer of 2004 I was called home because my father was dying. This was during the Kerry-Bush election campaign, of course. I have one uncle who has become a rabid Republican and he happened to be at my mom’s house when I arrived. My dad was in a bed room where he would die three days later. When I walked in the door my uncle came to greet me and his first words were, “That John Kerry should be shot.” I haven’t talked to him a lot since then.
Heh, I can hardly imagine how baffling it must be sometimes.
Maybe Trump will revamp our calenders. It could be, let’s say, 1574 A.D. now (“D” is for Donald), so I guess you foreigners would be able to make some kind of sense out of how our country is like this. Years may be of arbitrary length, longer when America is “Great” and shorter otherwise (i.e., when Democrats are in office).
Once people become accustomed to it, the pretense of an election will be phased out altogether, in order to cut taxes. “Fixing” it will be a very exciting plank in their platform in the next election which people assume is occurring. These things could all go into an endless series of omnibus bills designed to sow maximum confusion and chaos in all sorts of ways, which the market will sort out for us, so that we may return to a state of nature. Privatize the English language, make the metric system treasonous, compulsory tax evasion, conscription of all schoolchildren … you know the drill. The less sense it makes, the better.
I applaud all self proclaimed liberals who do this and tell their totally not racist family to stuff it. I doubt that the totally not racist rethuglicans have similar problems and suppose they only got included for “both sides” reasosn. Apart from those who feel emboldened to finally kick out their LGBTQ relatives.
Fuck that shit. Families can be the nastiest, most abusive bunch on planet earth and they’ll use that exact argument to perpetuate their abuse and the rest of the world helps them by saying shit like Miss Manners.
Also, there’s one incident for which I’ll always respect my abusive asshole mother: It was my birthday when the first Iraq war started and I was young enough that I still celebrated with cake with the family but already old enough to grasp what was happening. Of course the discussion came to the war and my paternal grandfather said something to the effect that they should just kill all those *racist slur*. My mother kicked him out.
Yeah, politically my family is OK. It’s just everything else that they suck in.
Note who conspicuously isn’t mentioned? I’ll give a hint: It’s the people who most definitely wouldn’t be invited to the family dinner, though they might be allowed to cook and serve it.
Funny how the disagreement can be made to seem small just by the simply expedient of ignoring the people you’re treating like shit.
#17 robro
I find it bizarre when people just blurt out a political opinion apropos of nothing right after meeting. Back in 1995 I was on a road trip to the eastern US and I stopped to visit a cousin in Idaho who I hadn’t seen since we were kids. Shortly after I arrived, out of nowhere she angrily declared that President (Bill) Clinton was a thief and a murderer! I was a bit stunned and thinking 1) we haven’t seen each other in 20 years and this is the first thing you want to talk about?; and 2) I’m Canadian and I don’t really give a damn.
Azkyroth @#8: If Rump has a supermajority mandate by that calculus, so does Hillary, with the added bonus of having more actual votes.
Too bad Ms Manners didn’t really give such an answer.
I prefer reading Terese Mailhot. She doesn’t mince words.
Please update the post to indicate this is fake. People are falling for it.
#3 – I’m not very impressed with the way that Miss Manners doesn’t seem to have noticed the last eight years. Just to mention a single element of those hate-filled years – birtherism. And all the people who want to minimize birtherism as a fringe movement get REALLY MAD at you if you mention that they elected the leader of that movement to be their president.
That’s the main reason I’m not too sympathetic to Trump and his supporters and all their whining about the protests and the meanies who keep bringing up the popular vote and birtherism. “Trump supporters, get back to me in the fall of 2024 and then we can talk about who’s the biggest sore loser.”
I think ‘nice’ and ‘polite’ are overrated. I’d rather endeavour to be kind than either of those. Those who are wilfully unkind frequently weaponize ‘nice’ and ‘polite’ to block criticism.
Those who’ve told me they voted for tRump have been informed to keep their distance as I have a severe allergy to stupid. And if the dolts don’t want to be called stupid they shouldn’t act stupid.
This is one of the things my wife strongly disagree on. She wants to maintain contact and civility with most of her immediate family, even though they are the type of people who actually vote for Trump (not just because of the never Hillary idea).
Me, I’m all in favor of calling my family out and telling them what I think when I hear or see them say stupid racist shit. My mom gets a little slack, but not a lot.