Dinner With Conservatives....Well Sort Of

By: D. DiFrancesco

In an odd twist, I am traveling for work in southeastern Arizona and while sitting down to dinner I had the pleasure, or should I say pain, of listening to the conversation of other diner. Unfortunately this almost always tends to make my blood boil.  What amazes me is that these individuals were throwbacks to the Reagan era even though two of the four individuals were not even alive at the time of Reagan’s administration.

They wholeheartedly bought into the idea that the majority of the country that needed government assistance was mooching off of the government.  As many know, but choose to ignore is code for black folks feeding off of the government roles. When confronted with their views they inevitably prove that they are script almost exclusively by Fox News.

They love to say that so-and-so is on public assistance and is making shy of $100 of what I am making working 45 hours per week.  In my opinion, if you are only making $100 more than someone on public assistance then you need to find a new job.  This my friends is your fault.  What makes anyone think that those on public assistance are making a fortune, my friends, it just is not true.  This is not the way to become rich and if you think that it is you are just fooling yourselves.

These same individuals who also love to claim that “Obamacare”, the Affordable Care Act is costing them a fortune.  If it is then their previous plan, or the plan that they never had was crap.  I for one am paying more for my family health insurance than what these individuals claimed to pay and I am still quite happy with it especially because of the added benefits that the ACA affords us. Honestly if I had my way I would love to have a single payer healthcare system in this country, but that is a virtual impossibility with the state of our nation’s Republican Party.

America loves to believe in the “impossible dream” that everyone can be as successful as they choose to be.  This is a fairytale, the average citizen will never be anything more than a laborer, regardless of their skill level.  This however, should not diminish their worth to society, nor should it prohibit them from make MORE than a living wage.  In this country we have allowed the wealth to dictate our worth to society.  They have repeated done everything in their power to minimize our value, yet we refuse to see that we are just pawns in their game.  We vote for the candidates of their choosing, believing that they care about our state in life…what fools we are.

Show me a Republican that cares about us.  Show me a Republican whose platform doesn’t revolve around tax cuts.  You think that these tax cuts are for your benefit, but look closely, look at what they offer and you will find that the only ones they benefit are corporations and the very wealthy.  This deeply saddens me.

Take a moment and look at what they are offering you and you will find that ultimately they offer you nothing.

Republican Delusion in the Workplace

By: D. DiFrancesco - April 24, 2015

Although this was not the post that I had initially intended, I felt that some venting was in order on my part to maintain my sanity.  

The divide in United States politics is as deep and as wide as I have ever seen it in my lifetime.  This has been primarily fueled by the partisan media in this country over the last number of years.  The saddest part about this is that previously reasonable, intelligent and logical people have bought into the inflammatory rhetoric being spewed by these news outlets without taking a moment to fact check what they are reporting as news.

Today, much to my chagrin, I was within earshot of a conversation initiated by one person to multiple people in my workplace.  And yes, the conversation was, as you can guess, about politics.

First of all, didn’t our mothers tell us that you never discuss religion or politics, and most importantly never at work?  I know that mine did, but obviously my workplace chose to be the exception to that rule.  Unfortunately political discussions occur on a regular basis in the office and even more unfortunate is that many times I am caught up in the middle of them as my co-workers and the owners of the business know that I am “progressive/liberal” leaning.  Being in the minority I take their good hearted ribbing lightly, but today was just too much.

A former company owner who has been retired for a number of years stopped by the office today to say hello.  I have seen this individual around from time to time, but never had the “pleasure” of working for him.  This person, we will call him Bob for the sake of anonymity, wandered back into the section of the office where I work and was speaking to my office mates as they both worked for him at one time.  Almost from the moment he came in he began spewing the most uninformed, unsubstantiated and frankly hateful gibberish about President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Democrats, liberals, progressives and virtually anyone who is not a card carrying Republican.

Now, although I label myself a progressive, I don’t believe that anyone regardless of party should get a free pass if, and only if they are legally proven to have done wrong, have blatantly lied or are thieves.  I realize that politics is about differing opinions, but the things he spoke of such as the President trying to circumvent the law to stay in office for a third term, Hillary Clinton saying that she is a communist and that there are liberal abortionist out in “there” that want to kill children as old as two years under abortion law (yes I realize that this is not abortion but murder), well, you just can’t (or maybe you can) make this stuff up.  There were other things said, but these were the highlights.

What makes a presumably intelligent man think this way?  I frankly don’t know, but what I do know is that he is not alone in his delusion.  There are many others out there, at both ends of the political spectrum that believe with all their hearts that these extremist views are fact.  I find the brainwashing to be quite fascinating and at the same time disturbing.

For the sake of this country and the world, I wish that people would take the time to research things instead of taking them at face value and preaching them like gospel.  I realize these are trying times for each of us and this nation, but an informed citizenry is the key to healing this divide through truth instead of rumor.

I would be interested in hearing if anybody else has experience this regardless of your political beliefs.

Thank you all for reading.