Last night I hosted some American family friends, one's father was ex Navy Seal, now CIA, and the other's is an NYPD cop. What would you have said?
TLDR: How do you treat 'pleasant' reactionaries?
Long story short my cousin was visiting, but couldn't make it. My family asked if I could show his friends around regardless, and of course I was happy to oblige.
I knew they were going to be sort of rich frat-bro poli-sci stereotypes from the outset, maybe a little bit ghoulish, but nevertheless I find Americans very entertaining in their ways and I'm a nice fella so I took them to some bars and some comedy.
Conversation didn't exactly flooowwwww, but what can you expect meeting someone for the first time? I can't tell if they had no opinions about anything or were embarrassed about the opinions they did have. And then I found out that they were descendants of CIA/NYPD.
I'm now going to be a joyless communist:
I just knew they were bubbling with totally oblivious reactionary ideology, but outwardly they were very pleasant and enthusiastic. We never did broach a topic that was too controversial. About the election, all they had to say was a quick sentence of 'well, most people think both sides are bad... It's a controversial topic because we're unfortunately so divided...' - just absolute platitude spoken very very seriously.
We also talked about the concussion crisis in contact sport, and again, they were just like 'yeaahhh, seems inevitable really, not a lot you can do... anyway...'
Never have I met people so un-opinionated.
When the comedy acts came on, they had a wail of a time. One comedian was a stereotypically attractive woman, and as she came on stage, while everyone applauded her onto stage, these two 25 year olds were giggling like schoolboys, prodding each other, and shouting "lets fucking go!! Lets go bro!!!". At other points in the set one of them especially would give a 'lets gooooo' to a punchline.
Very funny to watch. Americans are such a different breed. Still, they were just having a good time on holiday, and 2 of the sets were very gay and autistic, and they liked those too. And they bought me a couple of drinks as thanks for taking them. I would be lying if I said they weren't nice and friendly guys. I would place them as Democrats or perhaps libertarian.
Anyway, what do you tend to do in scenarios where you know someone would find you a disgusting godless communist if they had any idea?
What I did was just to be normal, and genial. But it is an odd position to be in. Can someone truly be considered 'nice' and 'pleasant' when they harbour staunch ideology that is inherently racist and so on? How do you reconcile that? Aren't like 90% of people like that (though some to more of an extent than others).
You come off as overly self-absorbed and opinionated. Congrats on being outwardly civil, but in an internally disdainful way for unsubstantiated reasons.
You said they were in their 20’s, and had parents with jobs you find personally/morally objectionable. You seemed to fixate a tremendous amount on their parents and built a significant preconception of their values before you met them.
Is it possible that they are 20-somethings on a trip together, away from home, and one of their anticipated benefits of being out of their normal environment is that they don’t have to be surrounded by political nonsense—when you asked about the election and concussion protocol in sports, it seems like they were just in the mood to relax and enjoy themselves. I think it is reasonable to expect drinks and a comedy show, not a philosophical debate.
I would give them more credit for being observant. It does not take a special breed of person to detect that someone you just met is holding back or judging you from the onset. They likely realized early-on that you had some personal, political ideology bubbling under the surface—or were perhaps warned by your cousin—and they understandably pivoted away from your conversational tiger pits to not give you any fuel for an argument.
I suspect you are more transparent than you give yourself credit for and these blokes just wanted to relax and not have the debate you seemed to want to manifest.
And my original comment gets removed by a moderator?
My comment posited an alternate view point—which, while it did point out potential bias on the part of the OP—it was not positioned in a way which implied anger, or included name-calling or profanities.
Kuori@hexbear.net, the hate seems out of place, yet supported by your moderators. We can do better.
spare me the aggrieved posturing. your original comment was hostile, unwarranted, and unnecessary. it offered no insight and nothing of value to the discussion. my response was appropriate to the situation.
i've decided nothing more needs to be said here on my end.
Your comment was removed because it was reported for being unnecessarily hostile, and I have to agree. If you're going to offer an "alternate view point", maybe don't start your comment with calling the OP self-absorbed, and claiming they're outwardly civil but internally disdainful. We get a lot of trolls from other instances, so this sort of behavior is something we're actively on the lookout for. If you're identified as one of those trolls, then don't be surprised if people fire back at you. Also, mod actions are final, and whining about them gets you nowhere. I would've expected a liberal of your stature to appreciate that. Just move on, and be better.
Wait, fuck all that libspeak. You're banned, smuglord.
I read what this person said. I think everyone else's replies suffice, but I will weigh in that no, my cousin did probably not warn his friends about me. Last time I saw him about 7 years ago we just hung out, smoked weed, went swimming, and played Black Ops for about 2 weeks straight. In his mind I would imagine I'm just his very British cousin.