Just enjoy life.

[cutter]

Link to original post: [drupal=1943]Just enjoy life.[/drupal]



So I should get this out of the way. I live in Roseburg, which is a pretty conservative area of Oregon (at least compared to Ashland, Eugene, and Portland lol). My dad is a REALLY conservative person and he is quite vocal about anything that happens in politics that he hates, which is obviously pretty much anything a liberal would do, like more taxes, more government, etc. And if you know anything about Oregon, it is a very liberal state.

Recently for about the last 3 weeks or so, my dad comes home from work and he first thing he talks about is something that pissed him off in the news concerning politics. He doesn't talk in an abusive or extremely loud manner about it, but he makes it quite clear to our family that he hates something and he will rant about it for a long time. There's pretty much no avoiding it considering he talks about it at dinner, after dinner, pretty much anywhere around my family and I. He talks about the latest "liberal wackjob" or whatever he heard on Rush Limbaugh or read about Ann Coulter for the day and it almost feels like he's trying to drill it into our heads. He dominates our conversations in the family. My mom is a moderate, leaning slightly liberal, and lately she just tells my dad to just stop talking about politics for once and just enjoy life for once.

I agree with my mom. Unfortunately, whenever my mom or I have told this to my dad, he retorts in some fashion of "Ignorance is strength! America is 1984! It's already happened! Don't hide from the truth!" So yeah... he won't listen.

Sometimes, it feels good that I'll be living on my on eventually. My dad isn't as bad as it sounds like from the above. He's a nice person that DOES treat my mom and my family nicely, as crazy as it sounds. Unfortunately, politics consume his head when you start talking about them, and he turns into a very pessimistic and cynical person.

If any of you are real pessimists consistently (it doesn't have to be because of politics), I suggest you should just step back and try to enjoy life right now. We only live for a finite amount of time, and only being 18 right now, I want to enjoy my entire life. I do care about politics, but I don't want it to go to my head like what happens to my dad.

 

[highfive]

I love life! It has my favorite music! Politics will always piss people off. It happens. Sometimes you just have to nod your head and agree. People will always consume themselves inside by wanting things their way. It's life. Big whoop.

 

[REL38]

Haha, I loved the 1984 reference.

I used to actually care about politics, but I've stopped caring for over a year.

Needless to say, I'm much happier nowadays.

 

[squirtleuser007]

my dad does the absolute same thing. he hates obama with every shred of his existance. he always says someone should kill these mother fu**ing liberal politicians! i find it quite amusing.

 

[finalark]

I hate politics. Each and every one of them is a back-stabbing liar who will do anything to get what s/he wants.

Also, I have to agree with your Dad. I hate politics, but I hate liberals more than any other party. Due to the fact that they're the most hypocritical of the four parties (if you count Liberal/Conservative as separate parties) seeing how they claim that you can be whatever you'd like to be and you can believe in whatever you'd like to believe in. But the very second you even slightly disagree with them they eat you alive as if you'd just ended the life of their firstborn, the crazy *******s.

 

[squirtleuser007]

^ i agree 100%. i cant BELEIVE obama said the stimulus plan worked... oh, of course it did...
i remember watching an interview on fox new (o'reilly FTW!!) and one liberal said: oh yeah, it did.
the interviewer said: oh yeah? how?
the guy stuttered and said: well, uhh, we hired some more firemen and police men.
the interviewer looked at him like: WTF? go die in a hole

 

[Deleted member]

My mom's the same way. I dislike Obama and his ideals, but my mother is always listening one of the right wing nutjobs, and tells me daily about his latest plan to turn us into Socialists. I really think the right wing nutjobs are just as bad as the left wing ones.

Both parties honestly suck, so I vote for Nader so I don't have to vote for either of them.

 

[El Nino]

My father was a political refugee. So, a large part of me refuses to ignore matters of the state.

But "politics" means something different to me than it seems to for most people in the U.S. The hardest part about having a discussion with most Americans on political issues is trying to deconstruct the paradigm constructed by mainstream media. The major news outlets only speak of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. They speak of war, but very few people I talk to in the U.S. seem to know the history of Afghanistan or Iraq as nations. The news says something is an issue, and then it becomes an issue. The topics they choose to cover are only the ones that incite the highest degree of emotional reaction in people. There is no productive or constructive aspect to this.

The news outlets are commercial enterprises, so they have to sensationalize their stories. Informing the public comes second (or maybe it's just a side effect).

I have heard, many times, politicians promise to improve public education. Yet, as the years go by, nothing changes. And the poor remain poor. No politician changes that. The Republicans drop bombs; the Democrats press sanctions. Both methods kill.

I won't lie, there are convictions and principles I intend to live by. But living by them is not the same as screaming about them.

EDIT: What might help your father is if you could find a way to suggest that he not watch the news so much. If you tell him to stop thinking/talking about politics, it sounds like you're telling him to ignore it. But if there's a way you could get him to think politically while looking at the world around him, maybe he could form his own opinions rather than rely on news outlets and letting them fan his fury. The news programs as of late seem to be purposely framing their stories to make people angry because it gets them more viewers and higher ratings.

Or get him the History Channel or something. National Geographic, perhaps?

 

[squirtleuser007]

^this guys ideas work. tell him to watch time warp. it's orgasmicly good. on topic, really the only new outlets that do this are cnn(liberal) and nbc(liberal). fox news(glenn beck FTW!) gives the truth unbiasedly, and unedited. they are fair from the shows i watch(minus oreilly, i tell my dad i think he's being more fair towards the right than the left, but he tells me america needs these kind of right wing people to bring back the left, or something like that.)

 

[RyuReiatsu]

Well, you can't simply tell a pessimistic person: "Just enjoy life!"
You ain't one, so you can't understand. Not trying to get in an argument with you, but truth is it isn't as easy as it sounds.

It's like putting a giant plate of hamburgers in front of a starving-to-death guy that hasn't gotten anything to eat for a month and telling him "Hey, watch them for me, and don't eat any. Ok?". He'll eat them all.

No matter how much you want to simply enjoy life, it's not easy. We can't help it. Been feeling depressed a lot these past years, while always telling myself "Hey, lighten up. Just enjoy life."... But it ain't as easy as it sounds. I don't really like it when people just tell stuffs they don't really know about. It's something that we can't really suppress or simply ignore.
Might we be crazy? Possibly, high chances. Should we go to a doctor? Maybe, yeah.

I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm more like trying to defend negative people right now. I wouldn't even bother replying if it's to debate. Just shooting out my opinion.
Keep that in mind, as I don't really want to argue all that much...

You could tell your dad to stop talking about politics so much, that's for sure. But for him not to take life as heavily, you should do something... but don't tell him: "Hey. Just enjoy life!"
It just doesn't work.

 

[demonictoonlink]

My grandpa that lives downstairs is exactly like this. He is my ride to most places, so I always have to listen to Rush Limbaugh. That's pretty bad, but it is SO much worse that he knows I'm against most everything he says, resulting in him yelling at me.

I wish your advice meant something. A lot of us are doing it. Life can be good, so why be hung up on little things? The day you change this opinion of many people is the day humanity takes another giant step forward.

 

[bobson]

fox news gives the truth unbiasedly, and unedited.

 

[Falconv1.0]

The day Glen Beck shifted from CNN to fox news, I died a bit inside.

BTW Bobson I love you.

 

[cutter]

^this guys ideas work. tell him to watch time warp. it's orgasmicly good. on topic, really the only new outlets that do this are cnn(liberal) and nbc(liberal). fox news(glenn beck FTW!) gives the truth unbiasedly, and unedited. they are fair from the shows i watch(minus oreilly, i tell my dad i think he's being more fair towards the right than the left, but he tells me america needs these kind of right wing people to bring back the left, or something like that.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXNvDD13hoY&feature=related

Of course, I tried showing this to my dad. He immediately dismissed it as "liberal brainwashing".

Oh yeah, to top it off, the ad above me as I'm typing this up is an ad to go to Ann Coulter's site <_<

To be honest, I hate both conservatives and liberals that are on extreme ends of the spectrum. Some of the stuff that has been proposed here in Oregon as bills makes me go "WTF..." Extremism has shown through history that it BLOWS.