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Tuesday Night Acoustic Guitar: Tommy Emmanuel, Train to Dusseldorf

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The Ghost of a Flea11/27/2013 9:48:12 am PST

re: #270 Dark_Falcon

That’s your choice. My own family is calm enough to avoid an unpleasant topic if asked without being butthurt.

If your family is that calm, then you likely don’t have the experience of being goaded and harassed into having a conversation you don’t want to. Of someone saying “it’s just a debate” while doling out insults and canards, or just plain shouting down any statement that’s longer than a paragraph and contradicts them. Of someone saying “it’s all in good fun” when it’s not good fun to be insulted over and over, have your integrity, your sanity, and your patriotism questioned.

And, of course, leaving is considered anti-family/even more rude. So you’re put in the position to just be ranted at or being seen as anti-social.

I”m in the same boat as Backwoods. People invite me to things, then treat me terribly. How often do I get to hear about my lack of Jesus, or how gross the brown people I grew up around are. How often does someone ask me a complex question about Islam or the environment, only to talk over my sincere attempt to answer. But if I don’t go, everyone doesn’t understand, and I get branded as the one doing something wrong…and it’s not just the nuts and eccentrics that shut you out.