For obvious reasons, this is not something I disclose often (although I’ve made a few comments about it), but I am was friends with one of the threeper people. Y’all Qaeda. VanillaIsis. I had no idea she was involved with that group but it didn’t surprise me that she was. When the last rounds of arrests were made, I woke up to the news that the father of her children had been arrested. I laughed, and said “I had no idea she was a member of VanillaIsis.”
At first she was fairly reasonable and sensible about the situation. She was mad at him for getting arrested over something stupid, so I had a decent amount of sympathy for her. But then she started getting involved with his case and surrounding herself with the terrorists that he palled around with and…. it went downhill quickly, and our friendship has suffered because of it.
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I should note that I am incredibly patient and I have to be somewhat tolerant of opposing viewpoints, being in a red state and all. But one thing that I have very little patience for is Bubble People. You know those people- the ones who only accept information that confirms their beliefs and discard any information that contradicts their opinion. This is something that I warned my friend about early on, after she quit being angry at her ex and started making excuses for him. She went from being reasonable to extremist in a very short amount of time, all aided and abetted by her little facebook group that feeds each other full of misinformation and, of course, dismissed all media that doesn’t share their view that these guys are patriots- which means that they dismiss all legitimate media because they’re not patriots, they’re simply fucking stupid, and any objective person can see that.
Anyway, every time she would bring up the case I’d try to change the subject. She wouldn’t let that happen, so I’d try to correct her inane beliefs.
“They haven’t even been charged with anything!”
“Uh, yeah, they have. Quite a few things.”
“He was there to protect women and children!”
“Why did they bring women and children to an armed standoff if they were worried about their safety?”
“Well, his gun wasn’t even loaded!”
“Then how could he have protected anyone?”
You can see where this gets tiring.
So I continued to try to change the subject whenever she brought it up because there was no chance of reality seeping into her mind. But she wouldn’t let it go, and after a couple of months of this, I lost my patience.
There was an article about the local dudes in the paper, and someone had the audacity to tell her that they thought the feds handled it really well. The outrage! You can feel the oppression from here, can’t you? So a couple hours later she starts complaining to me and I cut her off and said “Because they wanted an armed conflict with the feds and the feds weren’t going to play their game, so yes, they did handle it well, that’s why your dudes are in jail rather than dead.”
She started screaming, “no, no, you don’t even know. Imagine, you’re just sitting there on a bridge, looking out over a field-”
“Yeah, through your sniper rifle, waiting for the feds-”
“No, that’s just what you’ve been told! Then all of the sudden the federal agents-”
“Unarmed BLM employees-”
“Just start yelling ‘we have the authority to kill you.’”
I laughed. “Well, yes, because they do. The federal government absolutely has the right to use lethal force when faced with armed militants who want an armed conflict. They never said that, for one thing, but if they had said it, they’d be 100% correct. Good night.”
And with that I left and we haven’t spoken since.
This morning she was talking to my wife about what a victim Lavoy Fincum was. My wife wasn’t buying it, told her we’ve all seen the video, he was practically begging to be shot, and if he’d been a black man he’d have been shot long before he was. “If that’s true,” said the ex-friend, “then why have the cops that killed him been charged with murder?”
“They fucking haven’t! Can we not talk about this anymore?"
So she finally dropped it, but then brought me up. “I really like her, and I miss her friendship. It sucks that she hates me now.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She is tired of you bringing up a topic that you know she thinks is bullshit. She’s informed about these issues so when you try to make a case she’s already not only torn down your case but made one for herself that you can’t challenge. She feels strongly about this and you won’t let it go, but you’re never going to change her mind, you’ve just alienated her.”
Mrs BB took me out to breakfast this morning afternoon and told me all about it. Then later, she filled me in on another great story. Ex-friend got pulled over last night and she’s using her ex’s car. They ran the plates and came back to her and asked “Are you an enemy of the state? Are you engaged in terrorist activities?”
So now she’s outraged that she gets questions about terrorist activity while driving her terrorist friend’s car. Will the oppression never end!?!?
Now, on to tops!
Submitted by lotac:
Jen Hayden's diary "Mid-flight freakout after tarantulas got loose and crawled on passengers in Canadian-bound flight" was an invitation for someone(s) to channel Sam Jackson. Zenbassoon got there first.
Submitted by your humble host:
In brooklynbadboy’s diary about Bill Kristol’s so-called “Renegade Party,” citizenx points out that not having a candidate isn’t the worst thing that can happen to conservatives.
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2016-05-20, courtesy of jotter!