I had some friends over last night, and to say it ended badly is an understatement. The food and wine were good. The discussions were fairly decent but then all hell broke lose at the end!

We were discussing Machiavelli's "The Prince", as my book group is odd and we pick different sorts of books. That all went fairly well. Then at the end one of my friends dared to ask if Hillary's speech swayed either of our two friends who were Hillary supporters during the primary.

I tried, lord how I tried to be good. But I kind of lost it a little. Hopefully my friend's husband will talk to me again one day. It wasn't as bad as one might think - given some of the things I've been known to say and do to offend others. But he said he'd rather see people die than have a Democrat or anybody fund faith based outreach programs, and that this was the one issue that was preventing him from voting for Obama. How can anyone expect me to stay quiet after that?!

That should say loose, not "lose".

It's hard. I've given up talking about politics altogether (except for during my periodic phone banking volunteer stints with the local Dems group), because it's completely impossible for me to be polite about it right now. If I were the persuasive sort, then I'd do it because I could maybe change people's minds, but I'm more of the stuttery-rant-and-get-red-faced sort.

That said, everyone knows that politics is a very emotional subject for many, particularly right now, so I say it's fair to expect that the gloves will come off if it comes up. I'm sure you're far from the first to blow up at him if he's mentioned that opinion to any other Obama-supporters.

Whoa. Politics and religion. Well at least you didn't bring up The Great Pumpkin, right?

Yeah, I try very hard not to discuss politics with all but my very best friends. For one thing when I talk about things passionately without thinking them through, I tend to lose track of my argument. Particularly when I find myself refuting things that strike me later as irrational or ridiculous positions, but there I am arguing with them and the irrationality sucks me right in too.

I went to an election results party the Kerry-Bush election with my friends and much as I love them, their conduct that evening drove me a bit crazy (as, I assume mine did, though I tried to stay pretty quiet and just eat cookies). Since then I've avoided such activities.

Oops! But wow, what he said was, well, kinda asinine.

JTC - she could have made the Great Pumpkin Objection, a la Plantinga.

It's been a strange several months with our group because nobody wants to say anything to offend anybody else, but how do you have a politically active group get together a few times a month for different things and not speak about politics?

And it wasn't that he isn't supporting Obama that annoyed me, it was the overt hatred for all things religious. I'm a firm believer in the separation of Church and State, I'm also an agnostic, but I saying you would rather see poor people die than fund programs that are headed by religious groups was what I couldn't get over.

And JTC, we were discussing The Prince! How could we not talk about politics and religion while discussing The prince?!

I've got a strict no politics no religion rule when it comes to friends. It's mostly because of the wide variety of religions and political beliefs our friends have.

That guy was a little too hatey on religious groups to stay quiet though. Did he expect Hillary to do any differently?

I have a lot of eastern european blood in me. I worked for a very slavic gentleman and a german lady for several years. Our morning coffee regularly devolved into heated, heated arguments.

I never mentioned hitler specifically, but once something about shippingwelfare recipients to places where the cost of living was lower made me snap "good idea, stalin!!"

fortunately for me, he laughed. we're still on very goodterms, just on opposite ends of the political spectrum

My brothers founded the Young Republicans at our high school and, later, campaigned for Ollie North.

I know.

We limit our discussions to the foibles of all the candidates-- and no matter who you support it really helps to maintain a sense of humor about them. They are all human, they say silly things they shouldn't and make asses of themselves.

Ex: My brother actually filled *me* in on the "7 houses" debacle. I thing the subject line of his email was: Another Reason to Love My Candidate: Modesty!

Sadie, just a little Linus humor.

Oh no Laura!

JTC, I felt it as such. The humor is also there in the fact that my friend thought he was coming to my house to discuss "The Prince" and somehow we weren't going to touch on politics and religion. The impossibility is funny.

I don't talk politics with anyone but the husband, my immediate family, and a very few of his cousins, who are all either to the left of me (Mr. S and some of his cousins) or moderate left (my mom and sisters). With everyone else, unless I know that we won't disagree too much, I just try to keep my mouth shut.

However, my very conservative, very Catholic (or on my dad's side, very Baptist/Pentecostal) extended family pretty much knows that I'm the lefty socialist atheist feminist (and a few other ists) black sheep in the family and they don't go there either, all for the sake of family harmony.