Reply #124: I'm definitely not advocating any kind of civil war [View All]

I agree that civil discourse is the best way---actually, the only way---to communicate with people in the Tea Party at present. Unfortunately, they're not going to reciprocate. Take my sister as a for instance. All her life she was a pretty liberal person except that she had her views against abortion. Fine. But, then, she got involved with anti-abortion groups that were more conservative and then into groups that were just plain batshit crazy. Suffice it to say, she's no longer liberal. At all. She's a tea partier, she says. Although when I asked her if she ever attended one, she told me she hadn't. She's Hispanic. They'd tear her to pieces and she knows it. She lived in Germany with her civil service husband and used to praise their socialist medical system to the skies. She no longer remembers doing so. She'll argue for hours, denying she ever said anything nice about it. It was a horrible system. Germans would step out of hospitals and drop dead on the sidewalks. It's called brainwashing. You can't discuss things with them. You've got to de-program, not discuss. My sister used to spend hours telling people--family, friends, strangers, anybody!--about how great the care was that she received in Germany after she got an emergency gall bladder removal and various other doctors visits. She denies ever saying that now. Socialist medicine is evil. This is the mindset we're fighting against. You may be able to engage some in conversation on a one on one level, but it'll be a hard slough. But, you're right. It may work. After all, they took my sister away from us.