Reply #20: I know a few Republicans like that.

[Kitty Herder]

Like this one guy I know who is into BDSM and proudly asserts his right to engage in alternative sexual practices, but at the same time condemns homosexuality. He can't seem to understand that EVERYONE has the right to do what they want in the privacy of their own bedroom. He votes for the people who would stone him along with homosexuals if they had their way. His reasons? He believes in the "free market" (the free market that is treating him so well that he lives in a tiny cabin without plumbing in Alaska). He is sure that all Muslims are terrorists bent on killing all Americans and that we must kill them first, and, although he lives in Alaska and sees more Russian immigrants than immigrants from Latin America, he rails against "those damned illegal Mexicans."

I just don't understand it.

The friend I spoke of in the original post who plans to vote for McCain is also a bit of a hypocrite, when it comes to Republican "family values." Recently, he was living with a 22-year-old girlfriend and had no plans to marry her. He is also suffering mightily under our wonderful system of unregulated capitalism. He's sixty with no pension or savings, recently went into debt to pay for dentures, and then more debt to fix up the ancient clunker of a truck he requires to get to work each day. He lives in a tiny studio apartment and can barely pay the rent with what he makes working full time with no vacation. The reason he can't get a job that pays well is that he has an old felony record for drug charges. And it was just pot. So he is also a victim of the drug war.

But I don't think he actually understands the ideology that Republicans stand for, let alone how it affects his life. Not because he is stupid, but because he doesn't care to find out. He listens to the evening news, but Lord knows that doesn't truly inform anyone.

I wish I could help him understand, but this evening when I we were talking politics, he was irritated that I even brought the subject up. And I don't think he's open to learning anything from someone half his age. I guess I'll avoid the subject of politics with him. I don't want to do anything to harm our relationship. He's been like a father to me. I hating having a subject that I'm passionate about being "off-limits" with good friends. It's like having a wall between us. But it's better than making him angry.