How to win Thanksgiving: A holiday guide to arguing with right-wing relatives

[DonViejo]

Your guide to dealing with relatives with awful views this long weekend. A special "Obamacare train wreck" edition

ALEX PAREENE



Once again, Americans everywhere are spending a wonderful day with their families, being thankful for things, and also probably getting trapped wherever they are for days because of storms and mass nationwide flight delays and cancellations. But while family is a wonderful thing, sometimes people in your family hold very different beliefs than you do about important things like race relations and Islam. Once again, I am here with your guide to arguing intelligently, or at least coherently, with your right-wing relations. (Here are my guides from 2012 and 2011.)

As always, I can’t stress this enough: The first rule of arguing with your family members on holidays is don’t argue with your family members on holidays, because let’s all just try to enjoy one another’s company for once, without screaming and name-calling and so on. Many of your older relatives are lied to and scared by evil people on the radio and television, and that is not their fault. It’s usually best to change the subject, or go outside for some fresh air/cigarettes. But if you must, here are some reasonable things to say.

I have a feeling most of the discussions around the table this year will focus on healthcare, so that is what most of this year’s guide is about.

Obamacare is a disaster

:::snip:::

The broken website proves that Obamacare won’t work

:::snip:::

Canceled insurance policies prove that Obamacare has already failed

:::snip:::

Obamacare is a violation of religious liberty because Hobby Lobby has to pay for contraception

:::snip:::

Death panels are real because Mark Halperin said so

:::snip:::

The “nuclear option” is a naked power grab and unconstitutional

:::snip:::

The Iran deal is horrible, just like Munich

:::snip:::

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/28/how_to_win_thanksgiving_a_holiday_guide_to_arguing_with_right_wing_relatives/

[Cirque du So-What]

1. As an aside

has anyone ever seen a photo of Karnival Kruz where he wasn't making some sort of fucked-up face?

[SheilaT]

2. My response to the contraception thing is just like my response

to the anti-abortion people.

If you don't believe in contraception, don't use any.
If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one.

Likewise, if you don't believe in gay marriage then don't gay marry.

And DON'T waste a single breath giving me some pile of horseshit about your religious beliefs. You are wrong. Pure and simple. You can believe what you want to for yourself, but trust me, your beliefs have absolutely no divine sanction, no matter how fervently you may believe that.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Yeah, what really chaps my ass, though...

is that they so often claim, "But I don't feel that way because of my religious beliefs. That's just the right thing to do."

[SheilaT]

4. Then, I would say, do what feels right for you.

But don't micromanage my life.

Which is, as most of us here understand, the real issue. Go ahead and live by your own values, but don't assume you can force them on me.