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Is it strange to want to continue a discussion from 2004? [1]

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Date: 2023-05-05

I’m just going to tell a story, because it’s been on my mind a lot lately, and the community here has often been kind and helpful.

I was working at UPS in the Greensboro NC hub, and got transferred in ‘04. As one does, I looked for work friends in my new area, and met an intelligent guy who had some shared interests. We liked sports, smoked a bit of the evil weed. Then he started talking politics, and was heavily right wing. I told him “I can never see myself voting Republican, since they deny global warming.” He replied, word for word, “I think science is subjective.”

I later found out he was a supporter of Art Pope, and blogged for him. I was saddened. Now, back then, I wasn’t experienced in the morass that is political discussion. I didn’t know whataboutism from moving goalposts, and he mercilessly used the tricks any time we discussed anything, and I shortly gave up, remaining civil, but leaving politics out of it.

It took years of on-line discussion, joining Kos, reading, and, oddly, listening to flat-earth debunkers, (thanks, Sci-Man Dan) to develop logical argumentative skills to stand against the tide of bull, but I wish I could have had some of that back then. “science is subjective.” That shows that you know nothing about what science is. He spouted libertarian stuff, and my present responses would be quite sharp.

He also, by the way, went through cancer, and were it not for the Teamsters union, and the good contract. which included a robust health insurance package, his family would have suffered significantly, but the horrible Union contract allowed him to work at a sub-standard level for many months, and keep his job. (sarcasm about horrible union)

All this was before the orange menace, and the Republican party clearly attacking democracy itself, which has become so obvious that a supposedly intelligent man should have at least developed some tiny amount of doubt and hesitation. I actually could get in touch with him. (he’s on FB) but I’m so certain that I would be even more disappointed in him than I was then. (he doesn’t discuss politics on his page, mostly sports.) I just can’t help but feel that an intellectually honest man would admit that there are problems on the right, but I don’t know if he ever was that guy.

I’m not really expecting anything from publishing this, heck, I’ll be surprised if anyone reads it. It’s just been a journey, and I’ve learned a lot on the way. I kind of had to tell someone, and, well, here we are.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/5/2167769/-Is-it-strange-to-want-to-continue-a-discussion-from-2004

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