Ah, the joys of family.During a birthday dinner for Mrs. Wormer last night my new brother-in-law interrupted a fun discussion about donkey basketball of all things to share the following joke:
"You know what they say. You can lead a liberal to water but you can't make them think."
Under the table Mrs. Wormer immediately grabbed my knee in a death grip. No arguments with the family. Across the table out oldest daughter was fuming.
So, instead of a substantive response and a certain argument with this asshole I pulled an Ace Ventura fake "heh, heh, heh" laugh. The kind that communicates pretty derisively that the joke wasn't funny.
If I had spoken my mind it would have come out in some version of following:
That's right, you vacuous, slope-browed neanderthal. It's liberals who don't think. That's why we're the ones that elected not once, but twice, an incurious, lightweight cartoon of a president who proceeded to triple the deficit, brought our great country quaking to it's knees in fear of a bunch of knuckleheads who live in tents in the middle of bumfuck and revel in his ignorance of the very constitution that holds this country together.
Liberals are the ones that refuse to accept the science of climate change or evolution. Liberals were the people who didn't understand the difference between Sunni and Shiite but were certain brown folks had to pay for the 9/11 attacks so invading Iraq was justified.
Liberals engage in the magical, fairytale thinking that posits that if you lower taxes, revenue will increase or if you cut funding for education our people will get smarter. And liberals are known to celebrate intellectual giants like Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin.
But instead I did the Ace Ventura thing.
Considering how provoked you were, I think you handled this well :)
ReplyDeleteI would not have said that, I simply would have said "In your house I don't make snide comments about right-wing freaks, so I'd appreciate you not making snide comments about so-called "liberals" in my home. That's manners."
ReplyDeleteor maybe I would've simply said,
"That's right, 'cuz we're smart enough not to drink the Kool-Aid, Rev. Jones!"
Sometimes a direct approach - a bash on the head as it were - is the only way with these folks. Hadda doit w/some of our relatives...the rest we just don't talk with anymore.
The 'no fighting with family' rule is bogus in this circumstance. First, he is new to the family, not blood. Second, he made the comment; never start a fight, but always finish it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Mrs. W was right. The dinner table was not the place for this. LB's first response was correct (without the name calling, though ;).
AFTER the dinner, though, you should have taken him aside and engaged him in a debate. He sounds like such a Dittohead that it would have been fun to watch him spout idiocy and go away angry. Don't rant at him (though your rant was spot-on), just ask him to explain his 'joke' and rebut with intellect and wit. Wingnuts rant, thinkers speak.
Next time: Go get 'em, Tiger!
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ReplyDeleteIf you had told him that you would not have been arguing, you would have been educating.
ReplyDelete"Pardon me... I was thinking about something. I was wondering how I could remember more of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbarf's talking points."
ReplyDeleteHow is it that idiots are the arrogant ones?
Everybody gets one "Get out of jail free" card. He just used his up.
ReplyDeleteI liked your response. Next time, you can just say, "We are liberals. If you want to be welcome here, you had best respect our viewpoint and not insult it. Understood?"
Another spin on Ladybug's idea: "We're trying to teach our children not to insult other people at the dinner table."
ReplyDeleteUM: Very nice!
ReplyDeleteYou were definitely the bigger person in that situation.
ReplyDeleteTo say what you wrote would have been incredibly gratifying, but would have ultimately made everyone uncomfortable.
Now sit back and silently put a hex on his penis so that it may never let him quite reach orgasm again......
Not even Mesopotamian prestidigitationism?
ReplyDeleteYou are far too kind, sir, and thus, would make a lousy politician. ;-)
man, I have to deal with this shit every day, though thankfully not from family members.
ReplyDeleteI never get drawn into an argument...
I just have a veeeeerrrrry long 'revenge list'.
muahahahahaha...
Why is it always in-laws? I guess they're everywhere (but thankfully shrinking in numbers), but family is harder to ignore.
ReplyDeleteYou showed remarkable restraint
ReplyDeleteI thought Ace Ventura was a Republican...?
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