I am heading back in Monterey today after spending a wonderful two weeks with my grandchildren and their parents. Much of my time was spent just hanging out, going to playgrounds, playing games, and reading books with the children but I did take the opportunity to visit some friends and relatives in the area.
One day, I visited my cousin and his wife for lunch and it turned out that his brother and his wife were also visiting from Canada and it was great to see all of them after a space of about seven years. While we were chatting, a neighbor of my cousin’s dropped by the house, a man named John. He was about my age, and my ever-hospitable cousin invited him and he came in. He immediately started talking. What astonished me was that he began making the most extreme right-wing pronouncements. These included things like the US is no longer a country because under Biden, it has an open-door policy that lets anyone in (and he clearly meant the refugees at the southern border) and gives them handouts. He said that we should have walls like Israel does. He said that people in the US do not want to work anymore because they too get handouts from the government. He said that the current economic inflation was entirely due to Biden’s policies. He said that young people today are lazy and do not want to study or work hard because they expected the government to take care of them. And on and on.
What was astonishing was not that he had these views. These are quite common in the US. It was that he felt free to utter them as incontrovertible truths in the presence of strangers whom he had met for the first time. One is familiar with the dictum that one should avoid discussing politics and religion in social settings because those topics can generate great passion and animosity. But he sailed right past that taboo.
This put me in a bit of a quandary. In my normal life, I don’t meet a lot of new people and almost never encounter an extreme-right winger. I totally disagreed with John on pretty much everything. I knew that my cousins are not as left wing as I am. One used to be a Republican and now identifies as independent and the other I would describe as centrist. I could sense that even they did not agree with John but they seemed nonplussed by his breezy assurance that he was perfectly right. But I, like John, was a guest in my cousin’s home and did not want to start an argument. But at the same time, not saying anything would be taken as tacit agreement with his views.
After being silent for a while, I finally decided to interject but decided to do so in a calm and rational manner by asking him for specific evidence to support his statements. I first asked John where he got his information and he replied The Wall Street Journal and Fox News. That figured. Fox News propagates exactly the kind of stuff he was saying. The WSJ is really like two newspapers. The hard news section is pretty good because the business community needs reliable information. But the editorial section is pretty bonkers, fostering the same fantasies as Fox News, and can be thrown away with no loss. When he said WSJ, I suspect that he meant mainly the editorial pages.
As to inflation, I asked him what measures he used to arrive at his judgment that it was still steadily rising at a rapid rate and he said he ‘just looked around’ at the prices. I said that such impressions are unreliable and that there are teams of professional economists whose job is to measure this important number and the most common measures of inflation are the Consumer Price Indices and these indicated that inflation had peaked in June and was now in decline. Even the price of gasoline, which is what many people pay attention to, dropped from a nationwide average of $5.17 in mid-June to $3.74 now. Also the current inflation is not a purely US phenomenon. It is present in other countries hard too, including Europe. As to people not wanting to work, I pointed to the very high numbers of people who had got jobs recently that had resulted in all the job losses due to the pandemic now being recovered, and the low unemployment rate.
As to the US not being a country anymore because it had no walls to keep people out, I pointed out that it is very hard to get into the US and that most countries in the world have land borders with neighboring nations that are not separated by walls. As to Israel specifically and their wall being a model for the US to follow, I said that I considered Israel to be an apartheid state and that this was the judgment of many human rights organizations based on the conditions that the Palestinian people face on a daily basis. He was clearly taken aback by my saying this and simply dismissed the concerns of the rights groups.
As to the attitudes of young people, I said that my own experience during my teaching career was that the current generation consists of young people who are idealistic and hard-working and that I found it a delight to teach them. True, this was limited anecdotal evidence based on my personal experience of teaching at a private university, but at least it encompassed thousands of students, which was way more young people than most people like John experience in their lifetimes.
During it all, I tried to keep the discussion as factual as possible and he did the usual thing people do when their unfounded beliefs are challenged, of moving the goal posts, of shifting to another topic when the facts contradict their position.
He finally left and my cousins and their wives said that they were really glad that I challenged him while keeping the tone very level and low-key. I was basically following the practice that I developed as a teacher of physics. Rather than countering an erroneous statement with an assertion of my own, I ask questions such as “What do you believe…?” “How do you know this…?” “What is the evidence you have …” and force people to make their arguments explicit. The idea is make the other person examine their own views and see the flaws. They may not change their views. People rarely do so in the moment but if you plant seeds of doubt, they may later reconsider.
But as I said earlier, what I was really astonished by was that John felt so free to express his views so freely to people he had never met before. It revealed the utter assurance of people like him that what they hear on Fox News is the unquestionable truth.
“One is familiar with the dictum that one should avoid discussing politics and religion in social settings because those topics can generate great passion and animosity. ”
This is true in the US, where politics is extremely polarised at the moment, and so the discussion can swing towards animosity very quickly. But a discussion which generates passion and where there is no immediate “right answer” can also be a great conversation starter when you’re in a group of people you don’t know well.
Certainly back when I was a student, Dutch politics was a very acceptable topic in (new) social settings (with other students and/or faculty… which obviously does select for the more ‘reasonable’ political stances) and disagreements would generally yield interesting discussions.
Hey Mano, welcome back to Cali! We installed a special heat wave in your honor!
“He said that young people today are lazy and do not want to study or work hard because they expected the government to take care of them.”
I’m guessing I’m about the same age as this dude, and I’d like to remind him that our generation of Americans have had about the softest lives of any large group of people in history. My family has been working class or lower middle class for generations, yet I was able to go to college with only a couple thousand dollars of grant money from some fraternal societies in my small hometown, plus some hours working in the library. I got a dorm room, three meals a day, and free medical care. Zero debt when I graduated. I got a job at Intel, one of the giants of Silicon Valley at the time, straight out of college. There was hardly a week when I didn’t get invited to a pizza and beer lunch or a catered picnic in a park paid for by the company. I got to buy company stock at a discount, which paid a big chunk of the down payment on my first house. I had an excellent medical plan, paid entirely by the company, except for nominal deductibles. This was an entirely unremarkable experience for people of my generation who did well in school, and I bet ‘John’ got similar benefits in his life. So, he can’t tell me that younger people have it so much softer than we did! Unless they are trust fund babies, they simply don’t!
I read the title and thought this would be about an extreme right winger telling you faerie tales while assuring you they were completely true. Or something similar.
It’s probably also worth noting he’s got kind of a monoculture going on for his information. Murdoch owns both of those outfits from what I understand. So this person is in some respect getting information from different teams but both teams are led by the same person and it’s someone with a clear agenda. Even if you contrasts them, that still makes it difficult to use them as your main sources to distinguish truth and the bias of your sources.
Touch base with your cousin and find out what “John” had to say the next day about that traveling commie professor.
If I could say my country takes in poor people and gives them food clothing for free , I’d be pretty proud of it.
No blog posts on how well Sri Lanka is doing in the Asia Cup ?
Reminds me of a conversation I had in a train in Kerala (a state in India) with a Railway official, in 1992 or so (excuse the exaggerations by him to make his point):
I was remarking to him about how I find Keralites (aka Malayalees, people from Kerala) to be very friendly and easy to talk to. He told me “While Keralites will easily to talk to outsiders, they won’t be so friendly towards one another. The reason is this: Approximately 49% of Keralites are die hard supporters of Congress Party. Another 49% are equally die hard supporters of Communist block. So, the election goes the way the remaining 2% votes. So, when one Keralite meets another one in a social/casual setting, he doesn’t know whether the other person supports the same block that the first one supports. So, the conversations will always be whatever minimal words (uttered through gritted teeth) are required according to the situation!”
It was quite hilarious description, even if not exactly accurate.
Does that include him?
Does that include his children and grandchildren?
I have had some unpleasant phone conversations with my brother, in which I discovered how conservative he has become. But with an odd detail: when I ask him where he gets his information, he flatly refuses to say, and tries to change the subject. The last such conversation I had with him was in January 2021, when he was touting ivermectin as a COVID treatment.
My compliment, you have way more patience than I have.
“Israel to be an apartheid state”
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There is a Wikipedia article that indicates that there are refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. But how many Arab countries allow Palestinians to become citizens?
An lazy and uninformed comparison based on nothing but a Wikipedia article? That’s all you got? Israel isn’t just keeping immigrants stuck in refugee camps; they’re building around, constraining, and sometimes even kicking whole families out of houses they’d already been living in for years, and actively recruiting like-minded immigrants from OTHER COUNTRIES (including the USA) to take those Palestinians’ houses and force the original residents out.
@txpiper
So your contention is that Israel is like any other Arabic country ?
“So your contention is that Israel is like any other Arabic country ?”
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No. Israel, being a democracy, is not like any Arab country. I didn’t contend anything. I don’t know the answer to the question I asked. Do you?
@txpiper
No I dont know the answer to your specific question (Though i guess if you were really interested , you would Google that). I do question the relevance of your question to the statement “Israel is an apartheid state” since the behavior of these other countries makes no difference.
[Deepak, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/14/half-of-evangelicals-support-israel-because-they-believe-it-is-important-for-fulfilling-end-times-prophecy/ ]
[ Of course, trying to actively make some prophesy come about is kinda missing the very point of prophesy. ]
“the behavior of these other countries makes no difference”
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No, I suppose it doesn’t.
Here, txpiper:
https://www.shutterstock.com/search/separation-wall-israel
[Separation wall israel royalty-free images
978 separation wall israel stock photos, vectors, and illustrations are available royalty-free.]
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Basically, what MAGAs want.
My wife and I were at a family get together a couple weeks ago and Trump came up (not from me!). My very conservative brother in law and his wife immediately jumped on Biden for how bad the economy is. I calmly say that inflation is very much a global phenomenon and they both proceed to say that politics should not be discussed in polite company. Every time I have ever heard this it was from the same kind of person. It was the first time understood the true purpose of the saying. It’s not really that “polite company” can’t discuss politics, it’s so people with horrible views don’t have to defend or think about their horrible views.
came back with his gun, and shot you
He finally left and my cousins and their wives said that they were really glad that I challenged him while keeping the tone very level and low-key.
Yeah, no one wants to be the one to “cause trouble” or “make a scene” by calling out the right-wing loudmouth — but anyone who finally does is sincerely thanked — out loud or not — for finally standing up to all the years of stupid bullshit they never wanted in the first place. Stories like yours are becoming more common these days, as people start to realize they don’t really have to endure any authoritarian family-patriarch-wannabees.
Sounds like you independently derived the Socratic method. 😉
https://philosophybreak.com/articles/socratic-method-what-is-it-how-can-you-use-it/
rrutis1 @19
It is not impolite for them to shove their abhorrent opinions down our throats, but it is impolite to challenge those abhorrent opinions with nasty things such as facts.
txpiper……
From the link you provided:
So how many thus “defined” Palestinian refugees get isreali citizenship?
The Jewish Agency promised to the UN before 1948 that Palestinian Arabs would become full citizens of the State of Israel,[75] and the Israeli declaration of independence invited the Arab inhabitants of Israel to “full and equal citizenship”.[76] In practice, Israel does not grant citizenship to the refugees, as it does to those Arabs who continue to reside in its borders.
As of May 2012, the United States Senate Appropriations Committee approved a definition of a Palestine refugee to include only those original Palestine refugees who were actually displaced between June 1946 and May 1948…
Go Team USA!
And as for the Arab countries. Well, they are (perversely) in league with both isreal and the USA in this matter:
The Arab League has instructed its members to deny citizenship to original Palestine Arab refugees (or their descendants) “to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland
Or did you mean something like, when the isrealis kick Palestinian families out of their homes and send them to walled “refugee camps’ such as Gaza, they are being generous by allowing themselves to send these newly-minted refugees to these ‘camps” without stripping them of their citizenship too?
What was the actual point you were trying to make?
@txpiper
In context of what Israel does.
If you wanted a separate discussion of how Palestinians are hard done by other Islamic countries , sure but why juxtapose it with Israel ? Its the same damn argument that some South Africans would make when South Africa was an apartheid state -- “But just look at how these other African countries treat black people -- Just how look at how bad conditions are , South Africa is not so bad”
@John Morales @15
Yes its fascinating how American evangelicals support Israel and its policies and then those same evangelicals will participate in marches with torches and chant slogans against Jews. But yeah the all powerful omni -- God does need evangelical help to make his prophecies come true just like he needed Republicans to stuff the Supreme court to enact his laws.
My father’s masters-degree thesis (Stanford, 1952) was about US policy toward the fledgling state of Israel, and the Zionist movement that drove its creation. He quoted an oft-repeated definition of a Zionist as “someone who wants to send Jews far away.” Given the obvious Christofascist bigotry of Israel’s “friends” here in the USA, I really can’t dispute that definition.
“Israel to be an apartheid state”
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If apartheid means being separate from those who aim for your destruction, then apartheid is a rational and ethical policy.
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The walls in Israel were built to stop terror bombings; the walls are successful in that aim. Strong walls (with stronger gates) make for good neighbors. Will Hamas and the PA become good neighbors? Answer: Nope. But then Hamas and the PA are stuck on stupid.
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Israel maintains no refugee camps. Hamas and the PA (and Lebanon and Syria and Jordan) are maintaining refugee camps. The Palestinian people are kept in apartheid cages by their own leaders and used as cannon fodder.
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War is very serious business. War happens when peace talks fail, when court procedures fail, when diplomacy fails. The Ancient Romans were correct: si vis pacem para bellum. Wars have been instigated by the Arabs (Palestinian and others) and the instigators accepted with bad grace the consequences of war. The losers cry “International Law! International Law! International Law!” but said losers started hostilities stating the failure of International Law as casus belli. War preparation by the Palestinian Leadership was, is, and will be piss poor, amounting to mere martial masturbation. War preparation by Hezb’Allah (vowing destruction of Israel) is more serious and to be discussed at some later opportunity.
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Gandhi, MLK. Where are the Palestinian Gandhi, MLK? Nowhere. There is stupid and then there is stupid. Hamas is deadly stupid. Hamas knows that israel responds closed fist with closed fist. Israeli fist punches harder. Hamas knows that Israel responds open hand with open hand. And yet Hamas never extended open hand to Israel. Stupid is what Stupid does.
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General Lee at Appomattox; all around he sees a sea of blue. General Lee did the rational thing for his soldiers: he surrendered. Hamas and the PA have no regard for their own people. Hamas and the PA are eager to sacrifice the blood of their own people as a price for their own virtue signalling. War after war has been lost. Intifada after intifada have failed. Hamas and the PA are dead-enders. Meanwhile Israel is building itself to be an ever growing asset to other nations in the world. Israel has visa-free agreements with 156 nations; Palestine has visa-free agreements with 37 nations. The Trump Doctrine: Peace through Business not through War. The Abraham Accords. Hamas and the PA may not be able to wash off the stench of gunpowder. A stench unwelcome on the Train of Progress.
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“Israel to be an apartheid state” is a meaningless statement reflecting no truth, reflecting only J.E.A.R. (Jelousy, Envy, Anger, Resentment).
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Three-pictures-of-the-Israeli-Segregation-Apartheid-Wall-ISW-surrounding-the_fig3_344474119
It doesn’t.
Speaking of how Israel is definitely an apartheid state, those walls segregate the population into two different realms, determined by ancestry.
Israel has killed far more Palestinians than the reverse. Israel is the bad neighbour / colonial occupier.
Gaza shows this to be a breathtakingly blatant lie. Anyone with any information on the topic whatsoever sees through it.
“the most common measures of inflation are the Consumer Price Indices and these indicated that inflation had peaked in June and was now in decline.”
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That’s what they were hoping, but the latest published numbers are not encouraging. This report probably is probably why the Dow is getting hammered again today.
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“Cold weather is 20 times as deadly as hot weather, and it’s not the extreme low or high temperatures that cause the most deaths…”
Having a government that is hostile to the energy sector is going to make this coming winter very cruel for low or fixed income people.
Please explain exactly how our government is “hostile to the energy sector,” and how such alleged hostility will “make this coming winter very cruel for low or fixed income people.”
DJIA 31,104.97, down almost 1300 points
If we aren’t in or going into a recession, we’re missing a good chance.
Were you trying to answer my question, txpippy? Because you didn’t.