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Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
12. Good luck with that.
Sun Sep 9, 2012, 03:14 PM
Sep 2012

I love your enthusiasm, and I in no way want to squash it. It may work. I have just been fighting the ignorance and close-mindedness for too long to think it will be successful. But I like your spunk.

I do not know how many undecided voters there are either, but I also think that many who are decided in theory can be swayed by rational arguments. You have to understand that most people are not like you or I or the other people on DU who have strong convictions and opinions. We study and read politics. We know what we believe and why we believe it. You would not believe the number of people who are voting for one or the other because "their parents" or "their husband" are voting that way. I work in a place where I am the only liberal, there are many staunch Republicans, and many of the employees who just don't understand either side will quietly come to me to ask questions about things that they hear or get emails about. These people are being swayed by the propaganda on the right, but they are also easily moved toward the Democrats.....I know of two that have decided to vote for Obama, but they had just figured that they "should" vote for Romney because that is all they are hearing. These people are not convinced and can change their minds. Why waste time on the hard-cores? (Let me admit to wasting time too, since the only reason people know I am a liberal Democrat is because of some of the arguments we have a work.)

As to re-education, I have real issues with that on so many levels. The first, of course, is perception. I believe in educating kids to be free-thinkers and to analyze everything. And I believe that if they do, they will see through the smoke and mirrors and will not be taken in by silly emails about Obama's birth certificate. But to forcefully educate toward one side or the other is a recipe for disaster. But hypothetically, if you wanted effective re-education, it should probably start with exposing them to real experiences that are not something that they would normally encounter---like working in soup kitchens and actually meeting people who are having a hard time in life, or meeting women who have been in abusive relationships and hearing their stories. (LOL, this got me thinking of the TV shows "Secret Millionaire" or "Undercover Boss" where holier-than-thou rich people have to experience what the rest of the world goes through daily.)

So you keep up what you are doing, and I wish you well. Just don't do it so much that it takes all of your energy, because that is really better spent on things that you can change.

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