Campaign 2012, or, Let the mudslinging begin (er. continue?)!

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

I guess most of you guys either don't talk about politics much on your LJs or you have mostly conservatives on your flist. But for those of you who have liberal flisters, have you experienced any provoking comments yet?

I have an flister who I've met in person a few times. She's a really nice girl but a very strong-minded liberal. Despite our very different political views, we get along well and don't really discuss politics. Today she made a post showing off a button a friend gave her that said "Dogs Against Romney" on it. She told us she was voting for Obama, how strongly held her beliefs are, and five reasons that she's a liberal. She said at the end that she's fine with agreeing to disagree. I told her that's what I love about her, that she can at least be respectful of opposing views. But one of her friends (who isn't on my flist) decides to say "If you have a vagina and are voting the Ronney/Ryan ticket, I judge you. I judge you hard."

It's comments like this that annoy me because they seem like they're looking for a fight. I'm sure this person thinks that not everyone on my friend's flist has the same exact beliefs. And I'm sure there are some out there, but none of the conservatives or libertarians on my flist say things like this. It always seems to be the liberals. More than four years ago a former (thank goodness) flister was ranting "I HATE THE ASSHOLES WHO VOTED FOR BUSH!"

99% of my flist are liberals, so I have a filter for political posts that includes like-minded friends. I know it's my LJ and I should be able to say whatever I want, but I don't feel like slinging mud back and forth with people I otherwise get along with. Has anyone else had to deal with such provoking garbage before? Hoping I'm not alone, lol. I have a feeling it's going to get worse as the weeks go by. *sigh*

Comments

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

My so-called liberal "friends" all dumped me long ago.

"Dogs Against Romney" - What does that even mean?

But one of her friends (who isn't on my flist) decides to say "If you have a vagina and are voting the Ronney/Ryan ticket, I judge you. I judge you hard."

LOL! What idiocy. Again, what does that mean? I'd say to her, "So, you are admitting to being an intolerant bigot? Is that what you're saying?" Watch the blank stares. (Even if just on the internet.)

More than four years ago a former (thank goodness) flister was ranting "I HATE THE ASSHOLES WHO VOTED FOR BUSH!"

Liberals are the most intolerant people on the planet. I spent many years defending them and fighting against this stereotype. I no longer do that. Why? Because it is the truth.

I had a casual acquaintance who I thought was becoming more of a friend as we got to know each other. During... wow, I guess it must've been 2004, I was shocked to see a paragraphs-long, profanity filled rant about Republicans/conservatives/President Bush/etc. It was all about how she didn't want to know anyone of that type or who voted for him, etc. It was f-this and f-that. I couldn't believe what I was reading! She's one of the few people *I* took the initiative to unfriend.

***

It's remarkable how conservatives/conservative-leaning people are the ones who filter their posts. Leftists don't give a care what lies they post or who they insult with those lies. Their hatred of conservatives justifies anything they might say.

If you are that afraid of what your flisters might say in response to a post of yours, they are not your friends - regardless of how well you think you get along. I say this from experience. Most of my so-called liberal friends were people I knew for *years*, and before LJ. These were not acquaintances. These were people I trusted with my real life information, people I'd met in person, and one who I even had as a guest in my home!

There was no official falling out with any of them, that I recall. They just, one by one, decided they "could no longer read" my posts and eventually all dumped me. I had one come back to leave nasty comments in my journal and call me vile names. This from a person that I'd had no argument with! In fact, I had been worried about them because they seemingly disappeared without warning. And then they had the nerve to come back YEARS and say such ugly, hate-filled things to me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing!



Speak up in your own journal. Stop letting these people bully you into silence. They are not your friends.

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

I made a sort of rant right after the 2008 election in my LJ. Surprisingly, all my liberal friends were polite and said it was my LJ, I could say whatever I wanted and we'd agree to disagree -- all but one. She went ballistic and got really nasty - personal cheap shots, the whole nine yards. I ended up defriending her and I'm much better off for it. She was unstable.

"Dogs Against Romney" - What does that even mean?

lol, I have no clue. She's a big dog lover, and I'm guessing it's somewhat related to the rant about Romney having the dog on the car roof all those years ago? Have no idea.

LOL! What idiocy. Again, what does that mean? I'd say to her, "So, you are admitting to being an intolerant bigot? Is that what you're saying?" Watch the blank stares. (Even if just on the internet.)

Again, no idea. I did reply with something like "So you're judging me hard. Okay, then. Not that it fazes me at all.." She further explained that she's bisexual who is big on social issues. Maybe the "vagina" comment means something about abortion and the whole ridiculous "war on women." Interestingly she did say she apologized if I felt uncomfortable, though she has a right to feel disappointed/saddened by the way we vote.

I've run into so many intolerant liberals over the years. I even called them on it and said "Aren't you the ones who always preach about tolerance?" Blank stares. Once a girl was complaining about PMS, about her body preparing her for some act that was never ever going to happen, and ranting "Oh why do people carry those parasitic little fetus things around??" I actually told her "Did it ever occur to you that YOU were once a 'parasitic little fetus thing'?" Silence.

Wow, that's amazing. I've heard of that happening to a few people, that liberals demanded that anyone who voted for Bush (and later, who were planning to vote McCain) stop talking to them and defriend them.

You're right - Anyone who makes me so nervous that it causes me to censor myself to such an extent isn't really a friend. A real friend can look beyond differences of opinion and still respect you. Like I said before, I have a lot of liberals (one girl even a self-described communist) who still respect me after my 2008 election rant. They are the ones I value.

Thanks for the encouragement. :)

[darth-firefly.livejournal.com]

I must have respectful liberals on my flist, or either they don't post often. I just asked to be filtered out of political talk and I would do the same for them.

Now, if I could just do the same for Facebook, because I am about ready to punch a few people.

The real trouble comes from the fact that if a Republican/Conservative messes up, it gets beaten like a dead horse until the ghost of that horse is getting whipped.

If a Democrat/Liberal messes up, it's mentioned a few times and then hushed up. When brought back to light, it's the 'evil conservative media' (now there's a lie) or a vast-right wing conspiracy.

And nothing, NOTHING annoys me more than when people who don't even LIVE in the States have to make their judgements on what we should do and how one side is wrong and we're morons for not thinking like them. Yeah, Europe - that whole socialism thing worked out GREAT for you, didn't it?

It's really hard to be tolerant of others when they crap all over you because you have a different opinion and expect you to take it - because if you don't, you're a racist/homophobe/etc.

Dogs Against Romney - my mind when somewhere rather mean on reading that.

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, I see less political posts from my flist than I did 4 years ago (though I wouldn't be surprised if they picked up after the conventions). Maybe I should do that. I already have a filter for political posts and asked if people wanted to be added to it. But I should ask if they could do the same.

I hear you. Most times I skip going to my home page feed because of some of the political stuff. Even the ads in the sidebar that say things like "Women for Obama" and it says one of my friends "likes" this, drive me nuts.

The double standard drives me nuts. They can't afford to have their side look bad at all. Even in reports from certain news agencies... If a political figure does something wrong, they'll usually announce in the first paragraph that they're a republican. If they're a democrat, they won't mention the affiliation at all. Disgusting.

Ugh, I hate that, too! On that same flister's post, a girl from overseas said that she doesn't follow our politics much because she doesn't live here, but she likes the things she's heard about Obama ... and that he and Michelle are "so cute!!" My flister concurred and said they're the cutest couple. *HURL*

Absolutely. I made a rant not long ago in my LJ about this and said that I don't go out of my way to do this to people - is it too much to ask them to extend me the same courtesy? I guess to some people it is.

LOL, I think I can guess where :D

[kelincihutan.livejournal.com]

But one of her friends (who isn't on my flist) decides to say "If you have a vagina and are voting the Ronney/Ryan ticket, I judge you. I judge you hard."

So, if you are female and you don't agree with her ideology, you are a "bad" woman? ...Yeah, that's the real feminist speaking. I can see it all clearly now.

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

Apparently so. It's rather ironic in a way.

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

Yup! The paragon of diversity and tolerance is judging people based on what's between their legs...gotta love it.

[neverfading.livejournal.com]

""If you have a vagina and are voting the Romney/Ryan ticket, I judge you. I judge you hard."

Here's the perfect response: "Fortunately I use my *brain* when making decisions, not other parts of my anatomy ;) You can make decisions with your vagina if you want to, I'll be over here making decisions with my brain..."

[mprice.livejournal.com]

So after Romney is swore in, they'll have no problem with us saying that "It's Obama's fault."

Personally, I'm waiting for the chance to start telling people that they're only criticizing Romney because he ISN'T black. That'll make heads explode all over the place.

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

I can just hear them saying, "Aw, leave the poor man alone! He's barely out of office and you have to be so racist." Yep, gotta love that double standard.

LOL. I'd love to witness that.

[brendala.livejournal.com]

Yeah. If Romney wins, something tells me he wont have the luxury of blaming his predecessors every time he screws up for the next 4 years

[ladyofavalon77.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. A number of friends defriended me when I started talking politics and about the election. I have other friends who are very liberal and never say anything about my political posts :) I also try to hide those thoughts behind a cut so they can just skip over it :) So far, there haven't been any liberals provoking me in my journal but I feel your pain *hugs* I don't know why they do that. I think Obama is one of our worst presidents ever but won't attack others for thinking he's the greatest. I think they're just really unhappy :)

My favorite anti Obama saying is "Hey Barack, I'm Ba-roke" :D

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

Most of my liberal friends are quite respectful and don't say anything most of the time either. When I posted my post-2008 election rant, I stuck it behind a cut and posted a disclaimer. That didn't stop the extreme liberal friend from commenting anyway and flaming me. She defriended me and I was so much better off for it - she was unhinged. It seems like the provoking comments are from friends-of-friends on my flisters' posts. Aw, thanks. :) *hugs* Back in 2008 another liberal friend made a post bashing Sarah Palin for some speech she gave. I commented that i respectfully disagreed, but another one of her friends tried to start a fight with me.

I wouldn't doubt you're right!

Hee, I love that one :D

[foxfire74.livejournal.com]

My very, very favorite bumpersticker is the one I spotted that just said "BOHICA"*, with a very familiar O.

*("Bend Over, Here It Comes Again")

[jdphoenix.livejournal.com]

I haven't had anyone do this on LJ but my LJ friends are the ones who post most of the stuff I see on tumblr. I actually wish they'd do it on my flist instead because at least that would require some measure of thought be put into some of the horrible things they post. I hate not knowing if they're genuinely that hateful or if they're just so ignorant and blinded by the left that they can't see how absurd some of what they reblog is.

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

Heh, I was talked into getting a tumblr by one of my friends, but I didn't have much interest in it. I'm glad I haven't been back on that site for a while because I've heard about some of the political posts on there.

Me too. Or in the very least, stick them behind a cut so I can just scroll past and ignore.

[christina-tm.livejournal.com]

I only have 3 people on my list who are hardcore liberals. One of them never comments, one of them sometimes does and is very thoughtful and respectful, and the other causes problems. I have a filter so the last one can't see anything political I post.

The liberals say crap like that because they have no argument and therefore can only call names.

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

You're lucky. I really need more conservatives on my flist, lol. I've got about 4 or 5, so they're in my politics group (filter), but I feel so outnumbered.

Exactly. I actually just had to laugh because I was replying to my friend's follow-up comment on that post when I saw a new comment that basically said: "I don't call myself a liberal but I agree with all of your beliefs." *scratches head* Huh? They were all liberal points, so how do you not call yourself a liberal? Maybe they're "progressive", or "independent" (it seriously makes me laugh when people call themselves independents, yet all their beliefs are leftist).

[queenof1000days.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm lucky that the majority of my f-listers don't post political stuff. And the ones that do post the liberal items, know that I am pretty much against it. It's Facebook and Tumblr that's irritating the daylights out of me. I had to hide four of my relatives on FB just because I was so sick of seeing them posting the anti-conservative stuff.

This is also why I'm so thankful that this community exists. Helps me keep my sanity. Especially living in Wisconsin and all the political stuff that's been going on for the past few years.

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

You're lucky. More recently, most of my liberal friends would post their items behind cuts which made it easier for me to avoid, but this friend of mine likes to post everything outside of a cut. I probably would have just scrolled past if I didn't see that provoking comment her other friend left. Ah, that's one reason I haven't been back to Tumblr in a while. And I know what you mean about Facebook. Nowadays whenever I log in, I don't go to the newsfeed page, but I do it from a link in an email from a game or something. Just makes it easier to avoid that stuff.

Me too! I can imagine how crazy everything's been there.

[neemarita.livejournal.com]

I see all over Facebook about how Republicans are all rapists and how if you have a vagina you shouldn't dare vote Republican because you're being raped by the "Party for Rape".

As someone who was molested as a child and almost raped as a teenager, this shit pisses me off so much.

[brendala.livejournal.com]

The "Republicans are a party of rape" comments are not only offensive, but INSANELY hypocritical considering the way Bill Clinton is deified by the left despite the fact that he's spent most of his adult life sexually assaulting powerless women who had the misfortune to work for him. And the less said about the ENTIRE Kennedy family and their record with women, the better.

It seems as if the left has this ghoulish belief that a man can treat women like absolute shit in his personal life; but it'll ALL be forgiven if he just publicly supports things like abortion and Planned Parenthood funding. It's one of the main reasons I identify as a Conservative.

[brendala.livejournal.com]

I've been pretty lucky here on LJ. Most of my LJ friends lean left; but they're all cool people. But it probably helps that I VERY rarely post anything remotely political on my personal journal and my LJ friends are the same way. I prefer to use my journal as an ESCAPE from real life bullcrap; so it's mostly dedicated to goofy things like fan-art and rants about terrible, sexist cartoon reboots (http://brendala.livejournal.com/111213.html).


That said, I LOVE the fact that comms like this exist to give me an outlet to discuss this stuff.

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

You really are lucky. Most of my leftist friends are pretty cool. Sure, they'll post the occasional meme about "equality", Planned Parenthood, etc., but they don't go out of their way to provoke anyone. Lately it seems to be the "friends of friends" who make the nasty comments. I guess some of them just assume that everyone on their flist thinks the same way and won't have a problem or won't see it. Whatever I post on my LJ is on a filter and I keep all other talk open. I learned my lesson after my 2008 election rant.

Same here!

[ladyrogue79.livejournal.com]

The reason I came back to LJ is because I no longer have hardcore liberals on my flist who comment often. I had gotten sick of the crap I had to put up with over on FB. It had gotten so bad that I had unsubscribed from the majority of my left leaning friends (meaning their posts are hidden, but they were still friended), had unfriended 3 former friends after all three had gotten into rather nasty arguments with my husband (who posts more often than I do), and had one friend unfriend me with no explanation at all though I can guess it's over my political posts or unfriending one of the other three. And note that these were all RL friends meaning I had gone to high school or college with them. In fact, back in July, I had invited many of them to my birthday dinner. Two out of 10 came.

But of course, they're the "tolerant" ones....

[izuko.livejournal.com]

Correct answer would have been "You can't judge me hard; I don't have the equipment for it."

Then remind her that it was OWS, not the tea party that needed no-rape rooms.

[neverfading.livejournal.com]

My Lj is fandom-themed and I rarely talk about RL issues, and I almost never talk about politics. I have one conservative friend and a few others who are sort of conservative-leaning or at least not actively hostile to things like patriotism, etc.

TBH, if someone regularly posts things that I find unacceptable, or they're really vocal about beliefs/attitudes that are incompatible with mine, I'm just not going to be LJ friends with that person, period.

I don't hesitate to de-friend or ban people, at all, even for reasons that others might consider petty.

You are under NO obligation to "hear all sides of an issue" in your personal journal. A personal journal is different from a community. It is not an open forum. That's YOUR space, and you don't have to allow unwelcome people/comments into that space, any more than you would invite strangers into your house.

My personal journal is not a democracy and it's not open mic night for every random person who has a beef. It's nobody's soapbox but mine.

I've been on LJ for over 4 years, and I've gotten kind of hard-ass about things. If somebody posts something that I consider flat-out unacceptable, I remove them. No argument, no discussion, no apologies, no hassle.

I'm not here to listen patiently to opposing viewpoints. That's called RL, where you have to get along with a variety of people. I'm not compromising or being diplomatic or sugar-coating my beliefs, in my personal journal.

BTW, you are welcome to friend ME, if you still want to, after reading this mini-rant, lol.

[neverfading.livejournal.com]

TBH, anyone in TRFG is very welcome to friend me. I always welcome new f-listies :D

My only caveat is that I am one hundred percent not cool with slash and if someone is into slash, then we'd best not go there, because it won't end well.

[jessm78.livejournal.com]

Awesome :D

Honestly, I feel the same way about slash. Not my thing at all. So we're cool :) *goes to friend you*

[muses-circle.livejournal.com]

Very late to this party, but...

2008-2010 were bad years flist-wise. Most of my so-called "friends" on LJ left because of my postings on conservative issues (or just ranting about political issues in general). So most of those who are left either don't read my posts to begin with, or are conservatively-minded like me. Either way, I post less about political issues on LJ, mostly because I don't have much time any more.

Unfortunately, Obama and his union thugs have done a marvelous job of polarizing us...and we have allowed it to happen. It's bad on both sides, though conservatives tend to be nicer about telling liberals to screw off. Since I work in education (the playing field for Socialist Lefties....and believe me, I am surrounded by them!), I keep my political beliefs to myself because I'm not about to be ostracized for my political ideology. Maybe I'm too quiet on LJ, but that'll probably change once November rolls around.

And hey, if you're looking for conservatives on your flist, feel free to add me. I've got the most boring life ever, but that doesn't stop me from posting about it. :P

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

I think you should post what you want, when you want, and to heck with filtering.
And if people don't like what you have to say, well, banning and defriending work quite well.