I didn't know Nickelodeon was still running episodes of Space Cases. Man, that guy who played the black ranger has aged really badly.
Me: "No, Obamacare doesn't apply to small business of less than 50 people, that's like, 97% of small businesses in the US." Nutbar: "You need to get your facts straight." Me: "Look, here it is on the government's website with links to the actual text of the bill. Less than 50 employees exempt from providing." Nutbar: "Oh I know what they say." Other Nutbar: "You know if you know so much about politics why aren't you running for anything? If you're not running for anything how can you know?" Me: "WHAT??" Nutbar: "One of Obama's advisers was saying that they're gonna turn the country Communist to get back at white people for slavery." Other Nutbar:"That's just the attitude all of them are raised with. I didn't crack no whip motherfucker." Nutbar: "The problem is no one wants to work with Obama so nothing gets done, we needed to get rid of him so that things could get done." Nutbar: "And the banks just got free money with no restrictions, Obama just gave them all this money for free." Other Nutbar: "And GM just took a bunch of government money, it's owned by the government now. No one helps me if I go broke why did they get help?" Me: "So Obama should have let the company just up and go bankrupt and put all those people out of work even though you were JUST complaining about how people lost their jobs under Obama? I mean do you even see how that's a catch 22?" Nutbar: "I just think he should have done it better. Let other people put in money not the government, that's Communism."
Scene: Facebook. Friend posts link to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/obama-connecticut-shooting_n_2303017.html, link title is "Obama gets emotional over Massacre". Comment from (I think) his dad: "What about the children he killed with the drone attacks he ordered?" Wat. Friends response was a longer, better written version of "wat".
The US does order many drone strikes and children are sometimes killed in these attacks. And we keep doing it. It is inappropriate to bring it up in response to a tragedy, but US foreign and military policy kills tons of innocents.
One of my favorite quick Facebook lines is: What about American children who have died in ten years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Working on a military base is like the motherlode for crazy right-wing rhetoric. Was at the base gym earlier this year and a few commissioned gents were behind me on treadmills holding forth on how liberal our current Supreme Court and its 11 members are. I turned my head with probably a look of disbelief while churning away on my elliptical. One noticed and asked if the stated # was right. I said no, 9 members. I was challenged on that. So I named them. And then proceeded to say that with only 12 years of Dems in the WH over the last 32 years, the odds of a stacked, truly liberal court were highly unlikely. Unless those Repub presidents were absolute dullards and nominating the wrong folk. Those two geniuses were probably O-5 to O-6 rank based on their ages.
