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Someone I consider a friend on here posed a question to me that involved how I manage my money and up until now I had been reluctant to say much about this topic because it bothers me.

Deeply.

See, since last year it seems that it's fashionable to hate everyone who didn't support Hillary and it's also fashionable to accuse everyone who didn't support Hillary of any kind of foul accusation. Whether it's true or not.

Now I'm on record here saying several times that I voted for Trump because the other choice was Hillary. But Trump was not my first choice for the job.

Not that it matters to those who hate Trump. They hate me, too, and I've been told in no uncertain terms that I should kill myself, get shot, have my family wiped from the earth (and they're all Democrats!), and etc.

These things have also been said indirectly in the form of 'all Republicans should die', and etc.

This rhetoric amped up over the last year and I've found myself having to re-evaluate the things and people I've been supporting with my resources. And I've made some changes.

Some of them are small. Such as the few bucks I used to spend to buy lottery tickets for CKA.

I've endured some pretty foul accusations and misrepresentations over the past year on this site and you're going to have to forgive me if I can't see it clear to maybe make millionaires out of people who hate me and will think I'm a fool for helping them.

At work I was the guy who used to bring in donuts and pastries just to help make a tough place a little easier to bear. I also paid the lion's share for the water service and the coffee service at our old building. Not anymore.

Mrs. Bart and I have long supported kids heading off to college partly because we don't have any kids of our own. After doing some deep diving on social media we've ended our support of those kids who've gone off to college not to study but to become leftist agitators. Most of those kids will probably make up the difference with student loans but one of them has had to withdraw from University of Nevada Reno at the start of her third year.

A couple years ago we got to see a wholesome, sandy-haired Christian girl go off to college and this last June the tattooed, pierced, jet-black haired, snarling activist who took her place bitterly denounced us because we were conservatives and we were supporting Trump.

This was done on Periscope and she didn't expect me to find that particular video.

I did and I can't even begin to tell you folks what a betrayal this was to us and how much it hurt.

When it came time to write the check for the 2017-2018 school year I didn't reply to the request.

While I was gone a week or so back for a conference a tattooed, pierced, black haired and tearful activist showed up at the house to beg for Lisa to write the check that I would not. Lisa refused because she's seen the video, too. I doubt that we will hear from this girl again.

Can't even tell you how much this hurts.

We've cut ties with Christian missionaries we had been supporting because of their vitriolic denunciations of conservatives as being 'un-Christian'.

I've dropped some long time friendships. Getting called an "asshole" because of how I voted by someone who then expects me to laugh it off and go along is not someone I need in my life.

No doubt that some of this crap has contributed to some recent friction in my house. We're both bitter and we both hurt from the broken relationships we've had to experience this last year. Fortunately we seem to be working it out.

But yeah, I've had to rethink things. Thought it was time to put this here and not just share it on pm.

   

I don't hate you for supporting Trump... if I hated everybody I didn't agree with, I'd probably hate everybody.

   

Thanks Ray!

   

I want to see the persiscope video!

   

Why would you conclude people hate you? Just because they disagree with some of your positions? Did this kid attack you personally, or just attack some of what you believe in?
Totally think you're over-reacting. You've got guts to be on this site because many might take a similar idea by what most Canadians can say. I've never actually met anyone who hated Americans (or any other particular nationality) but most who hate some US gov't foreign policy or position etc., so if you support that policy you might take it personally. You shouldn't.
What you think might be good for the USA we might think will be bad for Canada. Two sides to every issue.
Hey look at Trump and NAFTA. YOU got ripped off in the deal?
I used to work building Kenworths, my ex making Freightliners. I've owned two Fargos...
My family and most of my school worked at the refineries. Now they're shut down and the gas comes from Cherry Poing WN, and ppl gripe at paying $1.40/L
Got laid off when the telco I worked for got kicked out of Point Roberts cuz "foreign" companies owning communication services was a security risk. Even though our company was owned 51% by a US telco. Had to move to this frozen shithole to work.
Bought a $399 6 HP outboard in Canada for $1399 before free trade. Now there is no more branch plant in Canada, no Canadian distributors pasting on markups and it's still $1399...
Left a home that appreciated 2000% to comes here, and repeated mill layoffs because of Softwood lumber duties means since... well I might break even after 20 years...

Two sides, buddy. Doesn't mean we hate you.

   

Bart that is horrible. It's really sad that you two had to go through that. That sort of thing really does ramp up the stress in any house. I find it hard to believe that someone would push the topic so much to ruin a friendship. Hopefully you got yourself a ticket it's fun to dream in technicolor for a few days till you check your ticket

   

I'll apologize and mean it too for my part in this, but I have to add two things:

1) My disgust at what modern conservatism has turned into since the rise of the Tea Party in the US is genuine, especially since they began with their willful use of the absolutely repellent Birther tactic when Obama was first elected. So too is my rage genuine at this kind of behaviour at those who called themselves the adults in the conversation. I will not apologize for this because I consider this to be reprehensible and I will not associate myself anymore with any person or political movement that found these kinds of tactics and strategies to be acceptable.

2) I will not apologize for my absolute hatred of Donald Trump. I've said enough on the other threads about him so you all know the reasons why this belief exists. I can say with some guarantee that on a lot of issues there is not a lot of daylight between what I believe and what Bart, Fiddy, Brah, and even Martin believe. But my breaking point is Trump. Under no circumstances will I support Trump or anything he does and I will not stop feeling this way until he is gone through resignation, retirement, military coup, exile to Russia, death, or some other mechanism of removal. That is how much I genuinely and truly abhor him because he is simply the single worst person I've seen in my entire life to occupy the most important office on the planet.

One can only apologize so often before "I'm sorry" becomes meaningless. I can join in and say I'd like it to be better here but I just can't. Not right now, not with Trump and the ongoing degeneration of conservatism into something, well, thoroughly degenerate hanging over the entire world like twin swords of Damocles. This is a stand, maybe my last one, and I can't back away from it, not in the face of such real menace right now. A time for peace, a time for war, and at this moment in history it's certainly the latter.

   

Ditto. Except in #2 plenty of daylight for me.

   

At the end of the day it's your money you worked hard for it enjoy it have fun with it. You don't have to justify how you spend it.

For the record though there are kids who go off to college and come out just as level headed and determined as they went in. My daughter did though for some reason she didn't like it when I told her that I never worried about her joining a cult starting one maybe but not joining. She is not a fallower. She did two college courses then transferred to university to get her mechanical engineering degree. She now the foundery engineer in a small firm. She's just as determined to take over as she was at 6.

   

We disagree on a lot of shit bartman, but I know you mean well at heart, and are trying to look out for your country and your family. You had a positive effect on me when I was a youngin' around here, and I appreciate it. You're a good dude, don't let toxic people bring you down, whether liberal or conservative.

   

I won't comment on this.
Suffice it to say, I just did comment.



Yeah, I see a lot of this, lots of self entitled loudmouthed brats, who think
they can run around, scream like wild chickens wailing about everything under the sun,
but as soon as they get a whiff of money, they get all luvvy duvvy again.

Too many people think what they do or say doesn't have consequences anymore.

I say good for you on showing them, that it does.

If you are going to denounce someone, at least have the balls
to not try and suck money from them while doing it.

You can't spell Janus, without 'anus'.





I'll bet it does. I think you and the missus have a strong social conscience,
something very much lacking these days, because it's all about 'me,me,me'.

Being betrayed always sucks.
Especially when you paid for it to happen.





I joined up a 'whisky club' a few months ago in addition to the BBQs we host,
at some point the Euroweenies wanna talk US stuff, usually around foreign policy and healthcare.

Healthcare is easy, I just have to remind them that most of them participate in a fully
paid up private system, and how much better it is than any State care anywhere in their
home countries. I had the occasion to go to the clinic for a blood test, saw an old man waiting second in line in the state line.
Walk in, do papers, pay money, down the hall, draw my 5 pints, and done.
While walking out, the old man ? Still waiting. Besides, what's the point of spending $500 a month for a plan that has a $10,000 co payment ?

Foreign policy is more tricky, usually I have to point out how much all the Euros loved Obama, then start rattling off the numbers of countries that he Obombded; and since their love of Obama turned out out be a disaster, things with Trump should be fine.

The only one I don't put up with is the nonsense that EU preserves the peace in Europe.
I like to start in 1948, and the education the weenies get is usually pretty embarrassing.
Fuck them for being so stupid they don't know their own history anymore.,
and how much they owe the US for every damned thing they have.

But I ramble,

I usually have to be very careful with what I say around here, and it does affect things. The wife can't say anything at all at work.
She just comes home and rants about those stupid idiotic Westerners.




It is always when the shit really hits the fan that you find out who your friends are.
This has always been true, and some days it is more true than others.
It's sad to see that some people are so petty and smallminded that they get all butthurt
over something as silly as politics, but it is better for them to show their true colours, rather than taking your money with one hand, and stabbing you in the back with the other.

The friction is maybe being caused by the realization that some people you thought
were friends, aren't. Or at a minimum, just idiots.

I hope you and the missus sit down and reaffirm that you two are the most important things in each other's lives,
and you agree the course is the correct, and start to lessen the value of other's peoples shouting and whining.

   

I'm with Ray and Tricks. You are a good guy. You follow your moral compass, and that's why it hurts to follow that compass even when it means you have to drop good friends and wards you've chosen to protect. If it were easy, you wouldn't be the guy we think you are.

Betrayal is like that, you can either let it continue or cut off relations and move on. Even Marcus Brutus found consequences after the populist ventilating of Caesar. So should people who call themselves your friend, and then betray that friendship behind your back. I know what it's like.

I have an Uncle, and we are nearly the same age. He lives less than a mile from me, and we were like brothers. We hunted, we fished, we drank together, we went hooker window shopping together. There was a seemingly minor thing that happened, and I haven't spoken to him in 14 years. My door is open if he wants to admit he fucked up, all he has to do is walk through it. Nothing more needs to be said. But I won't step foot in his home again until he does. And he probably never will, because that's the kind of person he is.

I don't go much for partisan politics, I think they are all scum. I am political only because I see deficiencies in society, and that is how change comes about - by being political. I'll avoid criticizing others because of their partisanship, because I feel it really has no bearing on who they are. My dislike of Trump is well documented, but it goes further back than his being President. But still, my dislike is for him, not people who believe in him. There are too many people who follow someone through cult of personality. It's a weird facet of human nature that I can't blame on the person.

So you support Trump because he's the option that sucks the least. I can appreciate that. That's pretty much how I vote, every time.





Nice allusion too!

   

Yes. By first names and in the mistaken assumption that we'd never see this.

   

And thank you to everyone for the kind comments. Much needed right now.

   

Well... this thread isn't what I was expecting from the title...

I'm pretty sure most if not all members here would have a beer with you.

I'd have a beer with ya. We probably shouldn't talk politics while I'm drinking but there's plenty of other topics to yammer on about.

   

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