I grew up in Colorado, but I wasn't the least bit interested in politics at the time, and I'm not sure I would have recognized stridently liberal or conservative speech if I heard it.

But I did my undergraduate work in Utah. Let me tell you, if there is a place in America that is the opposite of liberal New York - the bizarro New York, if you will - it must be Utah.

No, I never ever met a Utahan who immediately launched into a political tirade. In fact, the only people I ever heard mentioning politics at all were liberals (*NOTE* - in Utah, a "liberal" would be considered only slightly to the left of Hitler by a "liberal" in New York, so just because I'm using the same word doesn't mean I'm talking about the same thing). And I can say that in the overwhelmingly conservative state of Utah, I never once heard a conservative respond with hostility to a liberal comment.

Don't get me wrong here - I'm not trying to say there's no such thing as political tension. And indeed, the ostracism mentioned in the article undoubtedly happened quite frequently. But it was more of a passive, "Don't talk to Dan, he's a liberal. He probably smokes and swears on Sunday" kind of thing. But the political divide is nothing like what you just described.

Here is one anecdote from my Colorado years. One election, an amendment to the state constitution was on the ballot, Amendment 2 (I think), which would make it legal for an employer to fire an employee based on sexual orientation (I think - remember, I didn't pay attention to politics, so I only know what I heard from people describing the amendment, not the actual text of the amendment).

The amendment passed, and people freaked. We were dubbed "The Hate State" by Californians. Prominent Hollywood types threatened to boycott Celestial Seasonings (based in Boulder), even though no one mentioned boycotting Coors (based in Golden). I came up with the idea of boycotting sending water from the Colorado River to California, but no one listened to me. Eventually the amendment was ruled unconstitutional (presumably by the U.S. Supreme Court, but I could just be making this all up). But before it did, something happened at my dad's tire store. Two women came in one day to buy tires. They were carrying their pet dachshund, which my dad suggested was their phallic symbol (I had no idea what he was talking about at the time). They informed him that they wanted tires, but would only buy them from him if he first told them his views on the second amendment. He basically gave them a non-answer ("Well, it's certainly one of the most misunderstood things on the ballot") that they were too stupid to see through, and they bought some tires.

Since the left evangalized politics, this has become a more national issue. It seems that, even among friends, there is a lack of quarter from the left, they simply cannot imagine someone not agreeing with their vision of the world.

Uh, no. I think this phenomenon is becoming more and more common.

At work the other day somebody said to me, "Ya know, anybody who doesn't see that Bush is just plain evil must be stupid."

And no, that wasn't coming from the type of person who says, "We should just drop the fucking H bomb on the middle east! Kill 'em all -- that's what we should do." This guy usually has something insightful to say. Of course, it's liberal tripe most of the time, but he's usually careful to come across as considerate of other points of view. But after I heard him say that I knew that he'd been reading too many articles from 'smirkingchimp.com'

And this is Ohio we're talking about here...

I live in Kansas City, Missouri and politics are rarely, if ever, discussed in public. Sometimes you run across some guy or gal that won't shut up about how Republicans are greedy and selfish and responsible for all of society's ills, but invariably they turn out to have just moved to the area from some liberal stronghold and aren't yet familiar with public decorum. The thing is if you scratch the surface of a liberal here they turn into an East Coaster really quickly and start being abusive and condescending if they are in the majority. (Like a dinner with a dozen professors and a conservative.) I think it's the pack mentality. They feel emboldened and a little invulnerable. But if they're outnumbered they will be less strident and, more importantly, less abusive in their discourse.

The thing I notice most often though is their inability to understand how I could be a conservative. "But you're one of the good guys" is a favorite response. Followed on by a vigorous attempt to educate me. Once it becomes obvious that I'm much better informed than they are they generally back off. The Midwest is a pretty laid back place and we're usually able to agree to disagree. But only after you successfully fend off liberal evangelism will they respect you in the future. And don't ever expect them to accept that conservatives are anything but venal (those they don't know) or mislead (those they do know).

Strange, Ace, only because I had this exact conversation with friends yesterday, and found myself using your words almost exactly.

I grew up in a far 'burb of Chicago, spending most of my time around conservative rural types not a part of the generally Democratic Chicagoland area. To this day, I have never heard them mention politics unless they're very familiar with whom they're speaking to. They'd never go up to a complete stranger and say the kinds of things liberals do.

These days, I live in England. Let's just say I'm not thrilled with a few of my future in-laws. Proper Leftists and Socialists who have the books of Marx proudly on their bookcases. That I'm an American arouses curiosity, naturally. That I'm a pro-war American arouses a seething, burning enmity.

These liberal family members, who I not so affectionately refer to as "The Cabal," will seek me out wherever I may hide to assail me about the wrongness of my politics, thoughts, DNA, what have you. One actually came to my door one day with pamphlets, which I threw in the trash while she was watching. At family parties, I find the darkest possible corner and hide. I can feel their eyes searching. And if I'm found, God help me.

These people have no problem ruining my night by trying to engage me in a "debate" (a debate being them practically spitting at me for three or four hours). *This has happened at childrens' birthday parties.*

I've come to the conclusion that some people have made their politics their religion, and they're lookin for converts. When they denounce "religious fanatics like Bush" I just shake my head and walk away. The irony's too rich.

Sorry for the length. I felt compelled to respond.

I live in Anchorage Alaska, a conservative town in a pretty conservative state. I usually only talk politics with people I think would like to talk politics. It doesn't bother me if other people don't agree, but I have little patience for Chomskyites or Palestinian sympathizers.

Last weekend, my sister got married and the guy officating the cermeony was a Liberal lawyer who recently moved here from DC. This asshat could not resist calling Bush a moron, saying that Bush can't read, that we need a regime change, all in the most inappropriate circumstances. I mean things like, "Sure is lousy weather. I hope it clears up tomorrow." and he'd say something like "The way Bush is fucking up the environment, I think that might not be possible."

It was worse during dinner when he and my brother-in-law started talking about how lame NPR was and they never broke important stories like Seymour Hersh and www.truthout.org did. Me and my brother would share looks, smirk, or roll our eyes everytime he'd say something stupid like the world hates us because Bush supports Ariel Sharon.

But when he started saying how brilliant and incisive Noam Chomsky was, I lost it. I explained why he was just a bitter old commie loser who had to distort and magnify the faults of America in order to justify his hatred of it, and how all he did was bitch without offering any practical alternatives.

I never really saw people wear their leftist politics on their sleeves like this before Bush was elected. Like Podheretz says in Bush Country, Dubya seems to have driven the Left insane.

Let me try to shed some light on the inner world of one on the left.

I was a long-haired, start-a-nuclear-free-zone-on-my-campus, Reagan-is-a-nazi, substance-abusing college student in my day, and the strongest internal political influence I had was resentment -- resentment that we didn't all live in "equality," peace and understanding, and that since we didn't, resentment that "fascists" didn't f'ing see that fact or work toward the ideal.

Both because my politics were not based on reality, and because (admittedly, even then) I saw the other side as having a monopoly on facts (while I only had a monopoly on the "right" feelings), it felt necessary to fight facts with the fire of the soul.

This "fighting" had all the outward signs of positional weakness: emotionality, evasion, use of ad hominem, blindness to internal and external contradiction of statements and actions, etc., and when fighting from a weak, resentful position, anger and slander seem both appropriate and strong.

This is a condition of the left, whether you hear it from my major professor in grad school ranting madly to his impressionable freshmen about Reagan's invasion of Granada (I walked out in disgust as the ovation started), or in the vitriol of loonies like those at moveon.

Calmness in argument is a function of having made a *reasoned* decision as to your stand on a particular issue. Understanding both sides, and having chosen the most logical position -- the one calculated as having the highest probability of providing one what one desires -- gives one the calm of being right (internally, at least).

At least my experience shows that you *can* grow up ....

Well, if there's a heart of Bush country, I think I'm somewhere near it in Houston.

My experience here has been that the only folks who will start unbidden discussions of politics are lefties.

I still have many friends whose specific political leanings are completely foreign to me. The reason for this is that without proper context, or a legitimate reason to do so, none of us would start a political discussion any sooner than we'd break into either a rendition of a show tune or a discussion of genital warts. It's just not done among polite folk, and the world's a big place, so there are many things to discuss beyond politics.

They'd still be my friends, even if we disagreed, mind you. But because they're my friends, they're also quite polite. (More likely, because they're quite polite, they're my friends.) Funny thing though - when a political discussion has ensued in the past with various of my friends whose leanings were long-unknown, they've generally turned out to be shades of conservative, and in all cases, were able to enunciate an position intelligently and without rancor, even when we might have disagreed on a detail or three.

I sure didn't choose to be friends with them because they were conservative, but instead because they were polite. Coincidence? You decide.

p.s. While I was pencil-whipping this response, kobekko posted. Excellent statement of reality, that.

Typical.

Examples of these creatures in the wild:

http://brain-terminal.com/video/warriors/index.html

http://brain-terminal.com/video/rutgers-2003-10-11/index.html

Hmmm. Very interesting. Your comments -- reporting from the field -- just might get me the Instalanche that my posts couldn't.

Keep 'em coming, and nevermind about the length.

i live in pittsburgh, in a neutral state and pretty neutral city. and i actually had a bizarre experience recently where i was subjected to an ex ny-er, who felt it necessary to bring up her political views at every possible opportunity.

"how's the weather?"

"it'd be better if that stupid evil environoment hating bush were dead"

or something along those lines. not wanting to create office tension, it was very odd for me. i work with and argue with intelligent, decent people who just happen to be democrats often, but her blatant "i don't know anything about politics except i HATE george bush and want to talk about it as often as possible" style i had never encountered before.

most people are more careful, especially at work. but she was so far left and had no idea what the hell she was talking about, and unabashedly talked about it anyway...i've never seen anything like that, left or right.

I do find it very, very interesting that liberals seem to launch into political diatribes so damn eagerly, and without taking the simple, preliminary social-steps of first feeling out the audience.

It's like walking into mixed company and talking about your schlong.

Just. Not. Done. Old Man.

I don't launch into political diatribes in light social situations. Okay, I did once or twice after I became a conservative (right after college), but never since.

Pretty much, talking politics with me is like trying to get a bra off a co-ed. There's a little dance at first. Once I know we both seem to "want it," yeah, then, bombs away.

But I really do not get this liberal thing of just shamelessly announcing "Anyone who disagrees with me is evil and stupid" to people they don't even know.

Usual disclaimer: Not all liberals are like this, of course. I've had great friendships, and great political discussions, with liberals. Even a bona fide Communist.

What made those relationships and discussions work? A sense of humor, a sense of irony -- liberals and conservatives get along much better when they both ironically state the positions they're alleged to have, like a conservative saying "I don't care if the tax cuts stimulate the country or not; I support them just because they'll help keep the black man down" or liberals saying "I believe in letting murderers out of jail so that they can kill again; it's my idea of public service -- and, most importantly, a sense of fucking perspective.

As in: What you and I agree or disagree about regarding fairly abstract issues shouldn't prevent us from treating one another like human beings.

I've known conservatives who lacked those three senses. But not many; remember, I live in New York.

But I've known quite a few liberal douche-nozzles that lacked all three.

And this may be incredibly self-serving -- along the lines of liberals claiming that they can't succeed in talk radio, because liberals are too damn "civil" and "mannered" and "logical" and "intellectual" to succeed in radio -- but I think this is a big thing, too:

Liberalism isn't just a politics. As Geoff said, in a nice phrase, it's an evangelized politics.

But it's more than that.

I swear, there are a lot of people I know of frankly mediocre-to-inferior intellect who seem to embrace liberalism because they believe that doing so makes them "smart."

Weren't much for book-larnin'? Went to a non-competitive college?

Well, it doesn't matter. If you espouse the liberal position, you're entitled to consider yourself among the intellectual elite.

Hell, you can be an intellectual without ever once cracking open a book that isn't by Jackie Collins.

And part of liberals' anger stems not from someone challenging their politics -- conservatives experience that, and don't get angry -- but from someone challenging a very important part of their self-esteen. Their politics aren't just their politics; their politics are proof that they are Intelligent, Good, and (don't forget) Hip.

And so when you attack their politics, you are, unavoidably, making a personal attack on their very core.

I feel the need to amend my prior comment with a note that The Cabal consists over-whelmingly older, upper-middle class, former-hippy-but-now-pretending-to-be-old-and-wise-sophisticate types. Teenagers and twenty-somethings in Britain lean conservative and love America and Americans, in my experience. A very heartening sign. While Britain has more Leftist nutters than America, per capita, I think the winds are changing.

That said. No matter how many facts, figures, or well-reasoned ideas I fling at The Cabal, I'm met with the bastardingly condescending head-pat wielded by those with the Certainty of Correctness. The Cabal and those like them don it like religious vestments of kryptonite.

I'm pro-war? Response: "You're young. You'll learn." I'm *twenty-five*. Not a keeper of great wisdom by any means, but fairly solid in my knowledge of basic facts. I'm conservative? Response: "What happened to you as a child to instill such hostility against mankind?!" (I'm not kidding).

Reason, logic, and facts do not matter to these people. It's something wrong with *me*, a disorder with mysterious, but no doubt horrific, origins. These conversations are less debates or conversations than me emptying pistol after pistol of truth, only to watch the bullets ping off their self-righteous armor.

Anyway, in the spirit of politics as religion, I thought I'd share a link to a speech by the author Michael Crichton, about this phenomenon. Must read, IMO.

Forgot the link. Sorry :X

http://www.perc.org/publications/articles/Crichtonspeech.php

Aww, what a touching group hug you have here! I sure hope nobody spoils the nice clubby mood by, say, mentioning any unpleasant experiences with unsolicited political statements from right-wingers. Why, that would just be so tactless!

Like "Kerry Is Unelectable", I live in the swing state of Missouri, though on the other side near St. Louis. Missouri is a politically quirky state, generally very conservative yet completely dominated by Democrats until the last 6 years or so.

As "Kerry" states, politics is very rarely discussed in public, especially in the work setting. I've seen one political discussion in my almost 17 years in the work force and that one ended with the opponents laughing and shaking hands.

I don't think it is a coincidence that Missouri is also a deeply religious, red state. We tend to put our faith in God, not man, so are not suckers for man's nostrums for fixing all that is wrong with the world. We are quite skeptical if some slick politician or political propagandists tells us that the gub'ment can fix our roads, diaper our children, take our temperature and fix our dinner. Missouri is not known as the "Show-Me" state for nothing.

Being deeply religious, many of us have such an inner strength and conviction as to what is right and wrong in life, an inner security, so that we don't suffer from the manifest insecurities of the secular religious zealots who so often feel the need to regurgitate the latest lefty talking points as us.

Ace, you make a great point about the lack of humor and perspective among many on the left. They end up like the raving religious nutcases preaching on the street corner; they aren't preaching to convert others so much as to reassure themselves of their own righteousness. It's sad, really, but also very frightening as we all know from our confrontation with Communism the price that we will pay in blood, treasure and the degradation of our humanity if these people *ever* get a whiff of power in the U.S.

This dovetails nicely with Claire's analysis of the psychology of the leftist.

Colorado's a red state, but Boulder, where I live and work, is about as left-leaning as you can get. It's not nicknamed "The People's Republic of Boulder" for no reason.

This is all anecdotal (but so's the thread), but it's been my experience that when a conservative brings up politics in conversation, it's to see if the person he's speaking to is of like mind. If not, he'll change the topic (though even conversations on current events can get sticky). Liberals want to change your mind, and will attempt to do so at the cost of courtesy and/or civility. The implicit rudeness here is that you're assumed to have not thought out your own position/opinion as deeply as the person arguing with you, and if you'd just LISTEN and nod at the right times and admit how wrong you are, you would be worthy of further conversation.

The "freakshow look" that liberals will give you when you're forced to admit your conservative leanings is likewise disquieting. "He seemed like such a nice person; I can't BELIEVE he's one of THEM." After that careful categorization, there's not much else one can do. During a recent dinner party, I shocked the hell out of a co-worker's husband so bad that he dropped his chicken satay skewer on his shoetips when I told him that I was not only a Jew, but a Republican. It was like he'd discovered a talking dog, or if I'd told him that I had a Kuato-like Siamese twin in the middle of my chest that could read minds. He spent the rest of the evening shaking his head in amazement.

> I'm curious about it. Is this really a liberal problem, or is it a problem generally with the dominant/majority group in any particular area?

It neither a liberal problem nor a conservative problem.

That's because liberals and conservatives alike are all operating within the same paradigm -- the paradigm of the Rule of Law (or the paradigm of Hammurabi's Method of Social Regulation), which dates back about 3750 years.

So whether the laws are slanted toward liberalism or conservatism doesn't matter. The problem has to do with the dynamic behavior of any system governed by rules or laws. In mathematics, rules and laws are modeled as Heaviside Step Functions.

It's pretty easy to build systems out of Heaviside Step Functions and study their dynamic behavior.

Henri Poincaré began doing this kind of analysis some 115 year ago. Today it's called Nonlinear Dynamics or Chaos Theory.

But to really see where the error lies (pun intended), take a look at this scholarly analysis by Professor James Gilligan of Harvard University:

Punishment and Violence: Is the Criminal Law Based on One Huge Mistake? by James Gilligan

"http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2267/is_3_67/ai_66888957/print"

I live in Knoxville TN and it seems that everyone I work with who is a filthy hippy liberal assumes that everyone else is also. They enjoy saying condecending nasty things like "As everyone knows, bush is like dumb and stuff". Right before the Iraq war some clucker I work with staggerd into my office and asked me to sign a petition for peace, and before I had a chance to tell her know, went on to explain "As every thinking person already knows, this war is for oil, bush is stupid and stuff , etc. etc." when I simply said "no thanks" ans smiled at her she was visibly shaken. One thing gets me about these guys, if every intelligent thinking person KNOWS this drivel, why the shit are they telling me? They assume I am NOT an intelligent thinking person? Usually when I disagree I do get at least some mild hostility. These guys are self-designated thought police and feel it is there duty to educate us idiots regarding our backwards beliefs.

Aiyee.

Just had to say that in response to the Moulton machine.

> These people have no problem ruining my night by trying to engage me in a "debate" (a debate being them practically spitting at me for three or four hours). *This has happened at childrens' birthday parties.*

I think a couple of parties I was at were catered by the same people.

I think that women are especially intolerant of non-liberal women.

My step-mother (a college professor living in New York state), was STUNNED that I'm pro-life. She stuttered, "I've never met someone who doesn't support abortion rights," and then began to hammer me on the subject for the rest of my visit. It apparently never occurred to her that it was a tad rude to grill a house guest on her abortion stance, so stunned was she that a living, breathing COLLEGE EDUCATED woman would actually not support the dismembering of an unborn child. I'm surprised she didn't insist on checking my body for a swastika tattoo.

I also belong to an online mom's group, and on the website there is a separate political board. The liberals on the board are incredibly hostile to all of the conservative women. Don't support gay marriage? You're a homophobe. Don't support affirmative action? You're a racist. Don't support Kerry? You're an evil, war mongering, goose stepping Nazi. And if you don't support taxing the shit out of everyone and everything, then you're a rich, selfish, captitalist (I know, I don't consider that an insult, either, but they mean it as one)whore. Obviously. And when I once referred to Hillary as a shrill socialist, they went on and on and ON about how misogynistic I am.

When I lived in Texas, I didn't discuss politics during an ordinary social occasion, not one single time. No, that dog won't hunt.

But when I lived on the Upper West Side of NYC (during and immediately following the 1992 election of President Fellatio), I was acosted by Leftists on a twice-daily basis.

It was usually provoked by something along the lines of "Hey, let's go see Last of the Mohicans." Followed by "Oh, sure, so we can see the Native American experience of brutal exploitative murder and oppression be covered up with images of only shiny happy little Indians? Go read Howard Zinn, you pig. We're seeing The Crying Game instead!"

I'm convinced that the key to succssfully talking back to Leftist douche-nozzles (on both an inter-personal and a national scale) lies in doing more than identifying the hypocrisy or logical self-contradiction in their positions. Have you ever noticed that challenging a Leftist on the grounds that s/he is a hypocrite just doen't get you much of a response? It's not that they ever really deny being hypocritcal; they just don't seem to want to even discuss it. Coulter, Hannity et al. have made their entire careers out of making the accusation that the Leftists are hypocrites. But the reaction is usually something of a blank stare. It's as though they just don't undertand what the hell you are talking about, and you end up arguing past one another.

The Left-Liberal psychology is all bound up in feeling morally superior. I don't know how or why this cabal of thieves and baby-murderers ever staked out the moral high ground. Somehow, they managed to convince themselves that taxation and so-called wealth-redistribution is equivalent to charity. This is the core of their whole philosophy. Michael Ass-bag Moore says it all the time. Howell Raines recently called Kerry the "charitable" side of the Privilege Party, while Bush is the "greedy" side of the Privilege Party. Since they believe that their supposedly morally unassailable ends will justify any means, the argument that they are hypocritcal just seems to wash over them. "So what?," they reply. "At least I'm doing good!"

I think we should try saying something like this instead: "Nothing the government ever did, or could EVER do, could possibly be considered charity." When you say this, Leftists WIG OUT! So, repeat it like a friggin' mantra: "the government does not, nor ever could, make a single act of charity." "Government welfare programs (in any form) are slavery." When you undermine the (sometimes unspoken) assumption of their position, they positively HATE it.

Stealing money by force (i.e., income taxation) isn't charity. Do I have the right to steal from you? Of course not. How, then, could I justifiably authorize the government as my agent to steal for me? (The government-as-agent argument really stops them dead in their tracks.)

So, I suggest we get off of the "Liberals-are-hypocrites" line (not because it isn't true, mind you, but since it just doesn't have any traction). Instead, go for the jugular -- Leftism is theft, cynically masquerading as charity.

"Let me tell you what liberals in New York are like. They have absolutely no hesitation about injecting stridently liberal politics into conversations with perfect strangers they only just met. They have no sense that perhaps they ought not to be insulting those with different beliefs."

People, people, people! Can't tell you the number of times this has happened to me.

"But you're one of the good guys" is a favorite response. Followed on by a vigorous attempt to educate me. (posted by Kerry Is Unelectable)"

Absolutely true. And they always come up with statements like that.

In fact, all the above comments are on the money.

That's what ageing liberal hippie leftovers do. Only they can be correct; only they can claim the moral high ground, and they reel in disdain when they find out not everyone is a Pod Person.

Mention facts about the Kyoto accord and they go into brain stall and spout things like, "But Bush isn't a humanitarian!"

They do have their favorite keywords: environment, humanitarian, diversity. Once everyday, decent, ordinary words, hammered into Leftspeak.

In an attempt to be totally honest and unbiased (because readers of your post, and the subsequent comments, whose views lean more to the left would probably be quick to point out that our observations are poisoned by our politics), I'd have to say that the left is far more prone to the trolling, flame-baiting and provocative social behavior in question.

For example, how many times have you heard someone say, among relative strangers...

"You just got married? Congratulations! Too bad it doesn't mean anything anymore."

"Your sister just got into law school? But she's white!"

"Illegal immigrants? Don't worry about them. All the abortions will more than make up for it."

"$2.35 a gallon, huh? Maybe you should buy one of those new SUV's that runs on caribou!"

I never hear things like this, but I constantly have to put up with, "The weather would be better if Bush..." comments.

About half your observation matches my circumstances here in Virginia. When someone makes a liberal comment, I let it slide. But the burning anger is immediate and long-lasting for all of that; MINE, that is, because this twit is aiding the enemy.

Seems a lot of folks feel that way around here.

Has anyone seen Colonial House on PBS?

Once I found out that they weren't going to be voting anyone off at the end of each episode, I lost interest. But my husband was into it, and I was forced (by virtue of the fact that I was too lazy to get up and leave the room to watch) to watch a few episodes.

One of the woman -- the wife of the acting governor -- announced that she had decided to join the colony "for political reasons, because I'm frightened by the direction that the country was going on." And then on one of the episodes -- during which an Indian tribe was sent in to lecture the colonists on how greedy they were (very realistic, no?) -- the woman practically creamed herself, so excited was she that she finally got an opportunity to apologize for the White Man. Not one colonist objected to these PC lectures (although a British man did comment that his ancestors hadn't been in the business of opressing the Red Man, at which point the ultra-lib woman turned on him and said, "You ancestors were Imperialists, so you have plenty to be sorry for.").

I'm in Virginia too, but working in law enforcement (Federal Air Marshal Service) I've seen several instances of people assuming that those around them were conservative. I loved it, but my pinko co-worker across the way had to hunch over and pretend he couldn't hear them in the most recent episode.

To be fair, the most offensive remark was "liberalism is going to ruin this country," nothing like the "conservatives are fascists" insanity.

The only point emerging from this thread that I'd disagree with is the suggestion that liberal antagonism derives from Bush hatred rather than the other way around. It goes back at least to the Reagan era.

Back in the summer of 1980 a good friend from my student days invited me to lunch with him and his wife. (I had attended their wedding earlier that year.) She was a Yale Law graduate from a prominent Philadelphia family, in every respect a proper, well-mannered member of the true Establishment.

After a few minutes of polite chitchat, she started talking politics. She was especially enthusiastic about a freeze on nuclear-weapons production and the withdrawl of US missiles from Europe. Sharing none of her positions, I offered little in the way of comment, determined not to ruin what was supposed to have been a pleasant social occasion. She insisted, finally, that I reveal how I planned to vote in the upcoming presidential election. When I said "Reagan," she launched into a tirade, first about Reagan and then about me. She said flatly that the election of Reagan would guarantee a world war, and that anyone who supported him was immoral.

I politely excused myself from the luncheon. While I stayed in touch with my friend, I remained persona non grata to his wife forever after.

Before the end of the decade, of course, the Berlin Wall tumbled, followed shortly by the collapse of the Soviet empire and the onset of the longest period of peace in the West since the beginning of the 20th century. My friend indicated that being so spectacularly, thoroughly, and importantly wrong had not had any moderating effect at all on his wife's view of the morality or wisdom of those who disagreed with her.

The other day, I was trying to ignore a lefty in the office cafeteria who just wouldn't stop saying bad things about my department (he apparently didn't know who I was or didn't see me sitting nearby). This, of course, didn't endear him to me. But when the TV (tuned to Fox) started showing an interview with a scientist trying to discredit The Day After Tomorrow, he said, "Of course it could happen! In fact, it's going to happen! It could happen the day after tomorrow!"

Yes, he was serious.

As I got up to leave, I couldn't help but tell him how "real" it was, in terms of bovine excrement. Did I handle it poorly? Certainly. But I had no upset stomach for the rest of the day.

For the record, this is Bush Country - southwest Florida.

At a recent family gathering, a favorite very cool aunt of mine, with whom I always had nothing but fun and amusing conversations, were yukking it up, and somehow it came up that I am Republican.

The look on her face - it was as if I had just glibly told her that I not only like drowning kittens, but I also engage in lynchings on my weekends.

"You mean," she said, "even with what Bush is doing to democracy??"

"Uh, look . . ."

"Let's agree to not discuss politics," she very quickly said.

Eh. It worked for me, but I noticed that she was literally physically uncomfortable around me after that, as if my admission to being both a conservative and a Republican somehow made me less-than-human.

It wasn't any big thing. I'm a life-long Californian. I grew up in the only Mormon family in my neighborhood, and I've often been the only Mormon in the places I've worked, and when I was a working bass player I was also always the odd man out, so, at least when it came to religious bigotry, I long since got used to the evangelical types I bumped into saying the most outrageous things about me and to me. I never took crap about my religion from non-religious people, though.

Which is why I was kind of shocked when my aunt freaked out over my politics. It was completely new to me, and I frankly didn't understand it, until I realized that for the hard core liberal, politics IS religion.

The funny thing is, even the born agains I've met who believe that Mormons are secretly plotting to take over the US government in a CIA coup have been willing to still consider me a rational (if misguided and evil) human being. But for my aunt, I am a Lost Cause - A Bushie; I may as well climb back up in the tree and complete my rebellion against evolution.

I grew up deep in Flyover Land (Vicksburg, MS) and we pretty much had a rule about discussing politics and religion. Unless the person was a priest or politician, you did not discuss such things with them until you had known them at least a year and knew their full name, date of birth, and what drink they favored.

My mother explained that we do that because if you wait until you know the person, you'll understand why they think the way they do better and your disagreements will be more civil and with more understanding than if they were a perfect stranger.

Phoenix

Face it Ace. The left has read Mein Kampf and understands the need for an enemy to rally people around their absurd and self destructive agenda. Their "Achtung" attitude to anything anti-Bush and pro-stupidity smacks more of Naziism than the right. Talk about your political innoculation!

I live far back in cowboy country, and while dealing on a couple of old broken down parts-cars from the sweetest 90 year old man, he suddenly went Andy Rooney on me when he heard that both of my sons are Marines. I must have gotten every LLL conspirasy theory out there in about 5 minutes. I told him to either change the number on his radio dial or go back on his meds.

Another time I was on a sports team road trip, having breakfast with a bunch of 16 yr old high-school athletes when one of them suddenly went off about Bush making up the intellegence for the war. Being 16, he obviously was parroting his parents ideas and had little if any to back it up, so I filletted his position very gently without attacking him personnaly.

The stupid thing is though, that you have to go about 10 counties in any direction to get a 50% majority for the left from here. We vote so conservative in my part of Oregon I'm surprised they have the nerve to sport bumper stickers. Too bad though that the three counties of Californians around Portland outweigh the rest of the state in national elections. No wonder we keep getting stuck with liberal douch-bags for governor too.

Just yesterday I read in the newspaper a perfect example of this need liberals have developed to politicize EVERYTHING. I was reading about Smarty Jones' bid for the Triple Crown on Saturday, and they quoted Penny Chenery (Secretariat's owner) saying something about how wonderful it would be for the horse to win the TC because "with this horrible President and this horrible foreign policy we have, people need one thing to feel good about in this country." (I don't remember her exact words, but this was the exact substance of her remarks.)

What kind of obnoxious lunatics are these people, that they have a need to turn even poor Smarty into some sort of anti-Bush symbol?

Folks,

It's all our fault. We, as moderates and conservatives, have given free reign to the leftist moonbats and stopped heaping ridicule on their idiotic ideas. Seriously, where a person cannot be dissuaded by the facts, that person is insane. The only moderately successful way to deal with insanity in social settings is either remove the person or make fun of them.

Ann Coulter is useful for exactly this reason (she's not all that perceptive or insightful, but she is terribly scathing). Unless we stop being nice and start making fun of the Left, they will continue in this behavior.

Things in the People's Republic of Portland, Oregon are a little more laid back: I've never been invited to discuss politics with a stranger by the stranger spouting off against Bush, but that might be because the liberals think everyone's one of them here and they're too stoned in any event to care.

PS - Barry Kort, the article you pointed out was utterly off-topic. In fact, it was not only inapt, it was moronic. "Let's turn the prisons into schools and give everyone a hug." Brilliant idea, Einstein. Anyone who's ever even observed young human beings knows that physical punishment is sometimes the only effective means of discipline. Grown humans are no different. If you believe in such tripe, then you are a moron.

Thank you, however, for perfectly illustrating the concept of the evangelizing liberal who can't make appropriate comments in social settings. Bravo.

Tongue-boy, I have never been to Missouri, but I have to say that your state is special.

In a former life I used to answer phones for a major insurance company in Hartford, CT, and I remember the Missouri people were the most wonderful, polite, and charming folks to talk to, BAR NONE.

I can totally see how a political argument would end with a laugh and a handshake there.

We all dreaded the NY phone calls, and northeastern callers in general were more curt, unnecessarily demanding, and rude.

When I die I'm going to Missouri. As a Connecticut native, I know I don't deserve to live there.

I came to this site from another link (about the balls -- slider and goose), and thought it worthwhile to chip in. Ace asked for honest responses, and I think he's getting an echo chamber. This problem, I think, depends more on who's in control of government than ideology. During the Clinton years I lived in Indiana and South Carolina (both "red"). Politics was constantly brought up, in the most offensive ways, by Republicans, who simply assumed any rational human being hated Clinton. Whenever i revealed my mildly liberal politics, the reactions were the mirror image of the ones described above. I had the same experience with my brother and father's friends in Oklahoma and Ohio; they are both military officers and they and their friends spoke of almost nothing BUT politics.

Now that Bush is in office, oddly, I hear less of this from the conservatives, since, I think, people who feel that they are in control of politics feel less need to say anything about it. If Kerry wins, it will be the conservatives injecting outrage and politics into polite conversation.

One other issue. The fact that liberals and conservatives self segregate so much more these days also contributes to the problem. People who hear the same things over and over tend not to recognize their own positions as political -- what they believe is simply "common sense." Read over some of the conservative comments above, with some sense of objectivity about the WAY the claims are asserted, and you'll see what I mean. A casual attack on Kerry's character or Clinton's sexual behavior isn't politics but obvious statement of fact. But an attack on Bush's policies or linguistic ability is. For a liberal comment board, the opposite would be the case.

Anyone really think I'm wrong?

I feel like I'm going to a 12-step meeting when I say this, but here goes: "Hi, my name is Jon, and I used to vote for the Democratic party."

I live in the Boston area, which at times feels more liberal than NYC's Upper East Side. The amount of venom that can be heaped upon any view that doesn't toe the party line (far left) is tremendous.
I didn't begin to realize the situation until I left for college. Ironically, at a supposedly-PC institution, people were too bored to really support any "causes". The few people who had bake sales and such were usually ignored, though there were occasional exceptions where the administration took action against people.

I wonder if my experience would have been different if I'd grown up in another area of the country.

As to V C-L's comment, it's true that the segregation of political opinions has become rampant. I don't necessarily think it's an insuperable problem, as historically it has happened in our country. I read an article recently about the politics in the post Civil War era, and the hatred for Lincoln was equivalent.

Perhaps I am overly optimistic in believing that the two-party system will eventually correct it, by voting out people on the extreme edges of one or both parties.

Yep, VCL, I do. I'm a libertarian, couldn't really care less which branch of the Boot On Your Neck Party takes office, except for the wee little fact that the Left has been acting unpatriotic at best, traitorous at worst, for the past century.

That's at the national level. At the individual level, I see far more proselytizing from liberals than I do from conservatives, regardless of which platitude mouthing moron is in office. It's far ruder, far more evangelical, and far more dismissive of disagreement.

I think the person who brought up politics as religion has it right. The left have no faith, so they channel that energy into their politics. The right are still using that energy in both church and lifestyle, so they tend to treat their fellow humans as such.

The left has become by far the more annoying and intolerable bunch of Fundamentalists.

Confession time.

Shortly after being introduced to the works of Ayn Rand, I became, for a while, an obnoxious evangelist for the right. I was in college at the time, and I would go after my professors any time they said something that I perceived to be too liberal, even if what they said wasn't particularly political.

However, I did mellow out with age, and I don't provoke political conversations anymore.

I live in Moscow, and I have had many political discussions with communists. Real Communists. We don't have "liberals" here, a "liberal" in Russia is someone who is actually a Reagan/ Thatcher-ite free trader, polo shirt wearing, BMW driving "neo-con" as is the general phrase presently.

But the Communists here are the serious types. They are the one's that wanted to nuke the States during the cold war and regret that they did'nt. They had party cards and Lenin's works on their shelves; And to be totally honest, Ace, they act exactly like your "liberals" in New York. Actually, if what you are saying is true, I don't see the difference. Furthermore, their present policial positions are amzaingly similar as is their retoric as well.

"...their present policial positions are amzaingly similar as is their retoric as well."

-Except for the regret that the US hasn't been nuked? One would hope....!

Coming from the People's Republic of Santa Monica on the Left Coast, I ditto Kobekko on the early years. Evangelical liberalism with a monopoly on moral superiority goes back at least to the 20's. It is not, as VCL seems to think, just a function of being and out-of-power party. They can't take the blinders off and look at objective evidence: Stalin's socialist ideal MUST succeed (Duranty), Ho Chi Minh MUST be painted as a humble peasant freedom fighter, etc. Ever notice how much they dwell on the "shades of grey" sensibility vs. seeing things in black & white UNLESS the topic suits their agenda: abortion, firearms, Bush? I agree with Ace, we have to keep nailing them on their shifty, illogical, ad hominem "arguements".

David Warren talked about this in "Betrayed by
Friends", Ottawa Citizen 3/23/03. I took his advice and withdrew from the local bookclub and their irritating assumptions; and no longer attend the local protestant church. I have made a new friend though. Both of our sons are in Iraq and we have much to talk about.

I discovered many years ago that liberal women have a fatal attraction for me. Especially married liberal women. Of course, in public they have to uphold their orthodox POVs, but when they perceive we are alone they drop their ideological objections very quickly.
I'm not the only non-leftie guy who's noticed this phenomenon either. It's like there's something lacking in leftie males, something not quite satisfying.
I'm not complaining so far. Being a neanderthal has its perks.

Living in one of the most conservative states in the union, Idaho, I have to say that politics rarely come up in polite converstation.

But almost always when the subject is broached it's a lefty, usually relocated from the left coast, i.e., Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, or southern California. Being the more vocal type--much to my wife's chagrin--I am always utterly amazed at the sheer resistance to facts from these types when challenged. They are simply not interested in arguing facts, its always vaporous emotions and regurgitated bile.

I actually never knew the political inclinations of some of my very good friends until Gore attempted to sue his way into office and the recounts stretched on. We found ourselves at dinner parties in pure disbelief at the nastiness of the attacks on Bush.

I can say I've lost any friends over political disputes, but I've learned to avoid the topic even if it's killing me. At least if makes my wife proud of me.

And good luck on the Instalanche, Ace. Hope those servers are up to the task.

Please replace "can't" for "can" in that penultimate paragraph and thanks for tuning in.

One of the things that is continually thrown at me by lefties is the word "arrogance", with the intent to impugn; the "arrogance" of Bush, of US foreign policy, of American attitudes and behaviors, of American history. This word has, for me, completely lost the negative connotation intended, and has become, instead, a badge of honor.

I used to be offended when my views were pronounced "arrogant", when I was told that it was US arrogance that led us into Iraq, etc., etc.

Well, ... OK. That makes "arrogance" the antonym for a pejorative, then, doesn't it?

Vive l'arrogance Americaine!

(... sorry for the French. Uh -- the language, that is.)

Has anyone else been hearing this word shot at them as much as I have?

Larry Elder's been running comments on this same phenomon: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/le20040603.shtml

& my son recently brought it up. He's attending a fine arts college in Chicago, and is getting weary of the vitriol but can't figure out how to politely respond without ruining his grades and/or future contacts.

Being an older female, maybe it's a little easier for me. I can go wide-eyed and say "Well, that's an interesting opinion. On what do you base it?"

Oddly, that one single question is often enough to make them splutter and shut up. Kind of sad.

Not only am I in Bush country, I'm in Bush, Louisiana. The trait you so aptly describe is not at all unique to liberals. It is quite common with conservatives as well. We are so polarized right now politically that it is not unusual for one side to think they're completely reasonable and at the same time think another side is completely out of their mind. And people, like myself, who are a bit moderate and don't lean too far left or right, get it from both sides and are labeled unprincipled or wishy-washy. With some exceptions, I leave most of my politics in the voting booth or at home and take some comfort in the notion that my fellow unprincipled citizens and I can put the brakes on the kooks from the left or the right any time we want. And mostly, we do.

Politics here runs overwhelmingly liberal (NE Ohio) is as personal and crappy as NYC. I try to keep on good terms with old friends and relatives but avoid like hell all agenda based liberals. To them the personal is political and I don't want to waste another moment of my life with those birds.