No, I never was.
So, people have asked me why I’ve turned on LIBS. I will finally share the story.
Last summer…I went to a party. I took my partner with me. It was at one of my bestie’s birthday and he had a cookout.
Two women from work, LIB women, came to join us. I was certainly always friendly with them at work. I don’t recall how it got started, but one of them is certainly always pushy with her beliefs on everyone. She happened to bring up AGW. I didn’t say much, I was having a good time and wasn’t looking for a heavy debate at a bday party. She starts debating with my partner. He’s got a PhD in chemistry and started studying the issue of gw when the email scandal happened about 4-5 years ago. He, having spent many years in academia, questioned the whole issue and started reading about it.
So he has strong opinions that he’s formed from reading graphs, charts, papers, etc…YEARS now. So they started going back and forth.
Again, I was there for fun and decided to go get a refill on my margarita.
Here’s where I was flabbergasted…I come back, and this uppity, arrogant, upper middle class white woman looks straight up at me from where’s she sitting and says
" “Michael’ has strong opinions on issues…do you have a voice in this relationship at all?’ Do you just go along with everything he says?”
I’m looking at her blinking, like in "WTF did she just say?’
Now “Michael” knew me very well by then…his eyebrow goes up as in “this isn’t good”. The other LIB woman says in Spanish to me “Get him out of here”
I blinked for a few seconds more…last thing I expected at a bday party.
I kept my composure, didn’t say anything to the Spanish speaking LIB at all. Afterall, she didn’t ask me a question and could get off her flabby ass and walk away if she didn’t like the conversation.
So, the rude white LIB got “Well, Karen we are on the opposite end of the political spectrum, so yes we do grapple with issues and often. However, we treat each other with respect and regardless of how passionate our debates are…we care about each other at the end of the day and most often agree to disagree”
She backpedaled with “I know other couples like that, they also seem to make it work.”
However, what I learned that day about those on “my side” is that they are often as intolerant, rude and nasty as the “other side”.
It was the first time I realized it…I had always passionately defended my “fellow” LIBS and then it all cascaded down on me like a movie being flashed at 3x the normal speed.
We actually believe we’re ALWAYS right and when we’re challenged we CAN be as nasty and rude as we say CONS are.
The lesson wasn’t that CONs are good people. The lesson was that I could be insulted by my “own kind” because someone with some intelligence challenged them.
He happened to known the science better than anyone at that party…and I WAS ATTACKED for it.
WTF?
