Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
There are people, children or adults who had no one to spend the holidays with, recently lost loved ones and had difficulty getting through the day...
Worry about bigger issues and spare the judgement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cfbs2691
I'm confused in that it seems you're saying those with views or lifestyles that differ from yours have mental illnesses?
What they ^ said.
OP, although that does sounds like a colorful cast of characters, to say 99.99% of the population is not like them is a gross exaggeration. No, you should not try to debate them at family gatherings. If their lifestyles and views bother you so much, don't go next year. Problem solved.
.
__________________
My posts as a Moderator will always be in red.
Be sure to review Terms of Service: TOS And check this out: FAQ
Moderator of Canada (and sub-fora), Illinois (and sub-fora), Indiana (and sub-fora), Caregiving, Community Chat, Fashion & Beauty, Hair Care, Games/Trivia, History, Nature, Non-romantic Relationships, Psychology, Travel, Work & Employment, Writing.
___________________________
~ Life's a gift. Don't waste it. ~
Depends on your definition of extreme. Your extreme could be someone else's normal.
And that is the problem. Once your out there, surrounding yourself with like minded people, suddenly what would objectively be viewed as right or left or wingnut becomes that persons center. Its everybody else that's now too far one way or another, no room for argument.
If a person is capable of maintain objectivity its not so bad. I.e. I know my viewpoints are not the center and I stay open to debate..........but like the OP said, the US and even the world seems to be a place where people are sliding to one extreme or another, not only with no center ground but no tolerance it. I myself have some fairly right and fairly left views both and some center views. Boy do I feel alone in the world!
I once had a kid come out of active duty and work for me. He was a very smart solid good mid western young man who in high school had been what he called sort of preppy. He went into the service to get money for college. He was thrown into a career field and base which was small and isolated and populated by people with sort of a..idk..biker mentality I guess. He hated it. But he told me the scary part was after awhile he started to dress and act like them. Its a defense mechanim and it happens to people everywhere. The more nuts there are out there the more they change others to nuts.
Its pretty scary working with and watching some of these people who have drifted to an extreme. Once there out there that is their new normal..how do they know when they've slid into really scary territority? I think there is, not a fine line but a line from right wing serious gun enthusiast, disaster prepper who hates Obama to the type of fundamentalism that is donating money to groups that are trying to bring down the govt. the way US Irish used to donate to the IRA - except this time its our govt
Not a popular idea but one thing that I believe has had a serious negative impact on the country was getting rid of the draft, i.e. mandatory armed force service. Serving your country makes you feel like you have a stake long after your done serving. You actually understand the Dept of Defense which now no one does so you understand the consequences of getting into multiple war fronts. And it takes you out of that place where you've been raised to think like everyone around you and you go out and experience things for yourself and hopefully learn to think for yourself. It used to provide common ground for every adult male in the country - they had all served and all had that in common. That's huge!
And face it, a lot of our youth could stand to get away from helicopter parents and be forced out of their rooms and away from their electronic gizmos and learn to respect themselves through service.
It is also worrying when the military force in our country has become so generational and a right wing block of serious size. The military has never performed a coup here and I think we are long way from it. But nothing is in the realm of the impossible including taking over from within.
Serving your country is important and everyone should participate. Plus there are tons of long term social and cultural benefits to the country.
Here are some ideas that came from some interesting relatives which I found extreme:
A man who does not talk to anyone at any time unless he has to for work. He showed up and was there for the whole four days but did not say a word to anyone
A women who said America should open our borders to all and let anyone who wants to come in do so.
A man who has over 100 tattoos including a number on his face
A Grandmother who has never engaged her Grandchildren.
Another person who wants to completely dismantle Americas military
Another person who wants to nuke Iran and is convinced it would be a great idea and would have no real international implications.
(DO YOU GET THE IDEA?)
Wow. I am glad you cleared that up. I thought you were just another one of those elite Obama nuts we meet on here. Let's just say your wife's family has interesting friends. Must have been an interesting time. I wouldn't know what else to say on the matter.
Can "these extremes" be reasoned with? Should I even try to debate them? Is it a form of mental illness that they are so far removed from the ideas and lifestyles of the general public? Is it their loss or their gain or a sign of a successful society that people can survive and prosper economically and culturally with such extreme viewpoints, lifestyles and appearances?
I laughed and thought about another family group sitting around debating the same thing, except they were talking about you!
I think the real question would be WHY these 21 characters you deem to be outliers wanted to be together for an entire weekend. There must be some emotional bond among them, or why would the get-together have ever happened?
OP, as you can see, America has contracted a terminal case of Relativism.
I remember my friend Noah telling me about one of his relativist friends in his Catholic Converts class. She excused everything, via Relativism. Then, he told her about a group of new arrivals to these shores who sent their little girls back 'home' for an extreme form of FGM. Noah's friend drew the line there. "OK! There are limits!"
That was the late Nineties. We thought scraping out the insides of little girls with tin can lids and 'sewing' them shut with large thorns was something nobody in America who knew about the practice would ever tolerate. We were wrong. Now, there are apologists, for both the practice and its practitioners, who are not considered Lunatic Fringe. "It's their culture!" In fact, intolerance for the practice, to many, makes one a bad person.
Bit by bit, our horror and intolerance for torture, thievery, mutilation, substance abuse, and who-knows-what-else are eroding... whittled away in the name of Relativism.
But the truth is that there are a growing number of things in this world, of which we should be intolerant, at which we can reasonably be expected to look askance, and/or which clearly are indications of mental illness.
I think you phrased your question well. That your response drew such heavy fire says terrible things about the state of American Society. To me, the responses indicate the insidious effects of Operant Conditioning. Americans, apparently, have been conditioned to respond to statements and questions which call attention to the oddness or dysfunctionality of anything, by framing their response to adhere to the most extreme standards of Relativism.
If these responses are an indicative sample of current thought, we're goners.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
