Reply #11: I had about the same conversation today with my Republican grandfather

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He was talking about some BS that O'Reilly was pumping where Obama was supposedly going to give every poor person a house or some such bullshit. O'Reilly pushing the standard 'conservative' POV, "I picked myself up by the bootstraps and I pay so much (millions) in income taxes just to have it given to these other people." I just told my grandfather that I'm pretty focused in on Obama's campaign but I haven't heard any proposals like that. I also told my Grandfather that Obama's tax plan as it is would likely give me a $1,000+ tax cut. Then I reminded him that before Reagan, we were looking at a 90% upper tax bracket, compared with the low levels it is at now. Then my granddad wondered, what happens if I was making $250k a year? Well I told him that if I were making that and my tax liability went up, I think I could probably afford the higher taxes. (As it is I have not yet broken the $50k barrier.)

Anyhow I just brought up Iraq at that point and that was enough to get him off this O'Lielly bullshit and onto high oil prices, waste of lives/money over there, etc.

The problem is that the playing field in any discussion with a modern Republican is so warped. They are listening to Fox News or Limbaugh and getting total garbage information, then it is virtually impossible to have a coherent argument with them. When the first question set up by the other side is something along the lines of, "When did you stop beating your wife?" it's impossible to have a meaningful discussion on the issues.