rekced
01-21-2008, 06:04 PM
I would really, really like to help her find an alternative news source that she feels she can trust.
She is a sweet lady, extremely kind, polite, loving, honest.... She is also a devout Christian (so am I). She is one of these people who was a democrat through the 50's, 60's and 70's and then became a Republican sometime in the early 80's. (sound familiar?) :rolleyes:
She didn't become a Republican because she took free economics seriously, nor was it because she's a strict fiscal conservative. She became a Republican because she saw a moral decline in the values of the democrats at that time. (kind of ironic now, eh?!)
Ever since 9/11 took place, she has been glued to the news. Well, pretty much Fox exclusively. She has been in support of Bush 110% until about the last year. She has supported the war with Iraq 110% until about two months ago. Now I have helped her understand that it's a fraud, she still supports us being over there because she thinks it would be a danger to the troops to leave immediately.
We spoke for about three hours the other night about politics. I talked a lot about Ron Paul and what he stands for. We talked a lot about the constitution and what the founders intentions were. She is slowly starting to see the light with him compared to the other candidates, but she still kinda sees him as a "radical". I explained why that is a good thing.
Than all of a sudden, a very skeptical look came over her face. It came out of nowhere. She asked me slowly "Is Ron Paul a member of the The John Birch Society". I replied "No, but he knows people in the organization." She looked at me with great skepticism and told me a story of when she first got married. Apparently someone from that society spoke to my parents and tried to get them join. My parents wanted NO part of it. She went on to say that the last they heard the person who was trying to recruit them was facing jail time and was hundreds of thousands of dollars in dept to the IRS. I replied "Well, organizations like that wouldn't need to exist if our government followed the Founders advice in the constitution"..
She went on to say that she's really disappointed in today's politics and where things are headed, but that I should be cautious about being influenced by organizations like that. She kept asking me if I'm part of any organizations like that I kept saying no. She didn't seem to believe me. I explained that my main motivation behind supporting Ron Paul is to return this country to it's traditions and renew its legacy set for us by the founders. I feel the original American way was also much more consistent with old Christian doctrines as well.
Somewhere along the ling I explained that I think Fox News, like the rest of the media, is deeply corrupted. This alone literally made her flip. She thinks Fox is extremely fair and better at reporting than any other network. I tried to help her understand by giving her a few specific examples.. I could see it was upsetting her, so I completely changed the subject to something more uplifting.
It's obvious that it will be hard for me to show her how much corruption exists in Fox news and I don't really want it to get in the way of our relationship at all. Instead I thought it would be a better idea to not talk about it for a few months and then show her websites that do REAL reporting that's designed for people like her. It almost seems that if the website isn't huge or well known, she thinks it's not worth the time to let them confuse her.
Anyway, help would be greatly appreciated. I'm definitely not going to talk with her very much in the future about this because I want her to still think that I respect her opinion about politics. It would just be nice to give her a resource where she could look into it on her own. I don't feel morally right letting a loved one watch Fox without at giving them some kind of warning.
Thanks in advance
She is a sweet lady, extremely kind, polite, loving, honest.... She is also a devout Christian (so am I). She is one of these people who was a democrat through the 50's, 60's and 70's and then became a Republican sometime in the early 80's. (sound familiar?) :rolleyes:
She didn't become a Republican because she took free economics seriously, nor was it because she's a strict fiscal conservative. She became a Republican because she saw a moral decline in the values of the democrats at that time. (kind of ironic now, eh?!)
Ever since 9/11 took place, she has been glued to the news. Well, pretty much Fox exclusively. She has been in support of Bush 110% until about the last year. She has supported the war with Iraq 110% until about two months ago. Now I have helped her understand that it's a fraud, she still supports us being over there because she thinks it would be a danger to the troops to leave immediately.
We spoke for about three hours the other night about politics. I talked a lot about Ron Paul and what he stands for. We talked a lot about the constitution and what the founders intentions were. She is slowly starting to see the light with him compared to the other candidates, but she still kinda sees him as a "radical". I explained why that is a good thing.
Than all of a sudden, a very skeptical look came over her face. It came out of nowhere. She asked me slowly "Is Ron Paul a member of the The John Birch Society". I replied "No, but he knows people in the organization." She looked at me with great skepticism and told me a story of when she first got married. Apparently someone from that society spoke to my parents and tried to get them join. My parents wanted NO part of it. She went on to say that the last they heard the person who was trying to recruit them was facing jail time and was hundreds of thousands of dollars in dept to the IRS. I replied "Well, organizations like that wouldn't need to exist if our government followed the Founders advice in the constitution"..
She went on to say that she's really disappointed in today's politics and where things are headed, but that I should be cautious about being influenced by organizations like that. She kept asking me if I'm part of any organizations like that I kept saying no. She didn't seem to believe me. I explained that my main motivation behind supporting Ron Paul is to return this country to it's traditions and renew its legacy set for us by the founders. I feel the original American way was also much more consistent with old Christian doctrines as well.
Somewhere along the ling I explained that I think Fox News, like the rest of the media, is deeply corrupted. This alone literally made her flip. She thinks Fox is extremely fair and better at reporting than any other network. I tried to help her understand by giving her a few specific examples.. I could see it was upsetting her, so I completely changed the subject to something more uplifting.
It's obvious that it will be hard for me to show her how much corruption exists in Fox news and I don't really want it to get in the way of our relationship at all. Instead I thought it would be a better idea to not talk about it for a few months and then show her websites that do REAL reporting that's designed for people like her. It almost seems that if the website isn't huge or well known, she thinks it's not worth the time to let them confuse her.
Anyway, help would be greatly appreciated. I'm definitely not going to talk with her very much in the future about this because I want her to still think that I respect her opinion about politics. It would just be nice to give her a resource where she could look into it on her own. I don't feel morally right letting a loved one watch Fox without at giving them some kind of warning.
Thanks in advance