It Has Happened Again

Well, it's happened again.

A longtime friend and Godzilla fan writer, who happens to be liberal and a Hillary supporter, decided to discard our friendship over politics. In the past, we hardly ever talked politics, choosing instead to just discuss Japanese rubber monsters.

It all started last night when I sent an email to him to see if he was up for lunch this coming Thursday (sushi, naturally). We haven't gotten together since October. The email bounced back with a message indicating that my email address was blocked.

Next, I went over to Facebook and, sure enough, I found that he unfriended me there. So, I sent him the following:

Pedro, I tried emailing you to see if you're up for lunch Thursday and it bounced back. Then I find you unfriended me here. What gives? - A.

His response came this morning:

 I don't break bread with Trump supporters.

My reply:

What? That is so ridiculous.

When this first happened, I was on the road at the time in Kansas and I got into a beef with Yuu Asakura, a Japanese national living in the U.S., over politics. I tried to smooth things over privately to no avail. Since the person now in question and I were a lot closer, I am refraining from posting his name. (At least for now.) I later posted a blog on this with a link to a National Review article by Dennis Prager, "Ten Reasons Left-Wingers Cut Trump Voters from Their Lives". I didn't go too much into it, but this time I am posting those ten reasons.

They are:

1. Just like our universities shut out conservative ideas and speakers, more and more individuals on the left now shut out conservative friends and relatives as well as conservative ideas.  

2. Many, if not most, leftists have been indoctrinated with leftism their entire lives. This is easily shown. There are far more conservatives who read articles, who listen to and watch left-wing broadcasts, and who have studied under left-wing teachers than there are people on the left who have read, listened to, or watched anything of the Right or who have taken classes with conservative instructors. As a result, those on the left really believe that those on the right are all SIXHIRB: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, and bigoted. Not to mention misogynistic and transphobic.  

3. Most left-wing positions are emotion-based. That’s a major reason people who hold leftist views will sever relations with people they previously cared for or even loved. Their emotions (in this case, irrational fear and hatred) simply overwhelm them.  

4. Since Karl Marx, leftists have loved ideas more than people. All Trump voters who have been cut off by children, in-laws, and lifelong friends now know how true that is.  

5. People on the right think that most people on the left are wrong; people on the left think that most people on the right are evil. Decades of labeling conservative positions as “hateful” and labeling conservative individuals as “sexist,” “intolerant,” “xenophobic,” “homophobic,” “racist,” and “bigoted” have had their desired effect.  

6. The Left associates human decency not so much with personal integrity as with having correct — i.e. progressive — political positions. Therefore, if you don’t hold progressive positions, you lack decency. Ask your left-wing friends if they’d rather their high-school son or daughter cheat on tests or support Trump.  

7. Most individuals on the left are irreligious, so the commandment “Honor your father and your mother” means nothing to those who have cut off relations with parents because they voted for Trump.  

8. Unlike conservatives, politics gives most leftists’ lives meaning. Climate change is a good example. For leftists, fighting carbon emissions means saving human existence on earth. Now, how often does anyone get a chance to literally save the world? Therefore, to most leftists, if you voted for Trump, you have both negated their reason for living and are literally destroying the planet. Why would they have Thanksgiving or Christmas with such a person?  

9. The Left tends toward the totalitarian. And every totalitarian ideology seeks to weaken the bonds between children and parents. The Left seeks to dilute parental authority and replace it with school authority and government authority. So when your children sever their bond with you because you voted for Trump, they are acting like the good totalitarians the Left has molded.  

10. While there are kind and mean individuals on both sides of the political spectrum, as a result of all of the above, there are more mean people on the left than on the right. What other word than “mean” would anyone use to describe a daughter who banished her parents from their grandchildren’s lives because of their vote?

Read more here.

It is really incredible how the election polarized people to this extent. Will it ever end? It has been two months since the election.

Prager has this thought:

I wish none of this were true. But there is a way to prove me wrong: Re-friend your friends and relatives who voted for Trump, and tell everyone who has ended relations with family members — especially with parents — to reach out to them and welcome them back into their lives.