Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I was watching the couple named in the title a few years ago on the teevee, discussing their marriage and how they make it work. The smitten groom of the pair, James Carville, lefty, managed to land some snide comments that let us say did not bring clarity to this question, at least from where I stand. Okay, so they have a union based on mutual understanding and respect…and Mary Matalin can count on having her intelligence, character and personal integrity insulted by her knight in shining armor every night when she goes home. Oh yeah. What bliss.
But this is the exception to the rule, as Neo Neocon has noticed:
I’ve personally known a number of marriages of the mixed political variety. Almost all of them have conformed to this Democrat-woman Republican-man pattern. Almost all of them seem to be working out pretty well.
She’s discussing an article in the New York Times …
After 13 years of marriage, Anne Edgar and David Sussman survive by avoiding most political conversation. “But a Republican is a lonely man in New York,” said Mr. Sussman, a billing analyst for a nursing home in Connecticut. “I do watch Bill O’Reilly. And I’ve had some moments with Anne’s friends.”
The reaction to her husband in their social circle sometimes engenders sympathy in Ms. Edgar, whose firm handles publicity for museums. “My friends might act dogmatic or superior or try to pick a fight,” she said. “And it’s frustrating because he does know a lot. I know I’m right, but he is more articulate. And he’s kind, so how can he have these political beliefs — he doesn’t think that global warming is man-made — or appreciate people that I think are dangerous?”
Ms. Edgar suspects that Mr. Sussman may relish the contrarian role. “My husband is a Jew who rooted for the Romans in ‘Spartacus’ — that explains a lot,” she said. “I wonder if he’d enjoy being part of the mainstream if we lived in Iowa. Where we live, he has to dissemble or keep quiet. I do worry, though, about the safety of my husband in Brooklyn Heights if the truth gets out.”
When politics makes strange bedfellows, the extended families and in-laws may treat the newcomer as an alien life form. “But my family was actually more disappointed that I wasn’t marrying a Red Sox fan,” said Jennifer Taddeo, a lawyer in Franklin, Mass. “I had a history of dating Republicans. I found them interesting but misguided. I do value that political back-and-forth. It would be much more difficult for me to be with somebody who was apathetic.”
Her husband, Russell Taddeo, a business consultant for Staples, upholds his family’s conservative values. “And his father makes him look like a crazy liberal,” Ms. Taddeo said. “But Russ has some of his father’s nature, so he likes to say things to shock, then sit back and watch the carnage. I tell him that living in Massachusetts is a dream come true — there are so many people he can inflame. I just take everything he says with several huge grains of salt, preferably on the edge of a margarita.”
Try as I might, I cannot think of a single marriage or coupling I personally know that runs in the Matalin-Carville direction. NN has picked up on this as well:
Note that, in the marriages described in the article, it’s the woman who’s the liberal and the man who’s the conservative. This ties in with statistics showing that, ever since a transition time somewhere during the 70s or early 80s, women consistently have been more likely to vote Democrat and men Republican.
Note also how polite and tactful the conservative men in the Times article are toward their liberal spouses, and the unwarranted condescension of most of the liberal wives towards their own conservative husbands.
I think, if your name isn’t James Carville, the liberal-man conservative-woman dynamic just isn’t going to work. Try having a “friendly debate” with a liberal about an idea some time without either side being allowed to mention surpluses or deficits in the other person’s qualities. A decade ago, or more, this might have been possible. Now it’s like herding cats. The liberal has to keep going there; arguing about the idea itself just isn’t feasible because there is no idea for the liberal to argue. “I’m sure Obama will get it all fixed any day now, just wait and see,” and that exhausts everything they have to say about it; to go any further would involve speaking on behalf of His Holiness. And the underlings do not speak for Our First Holy President — it doesn’t work that way — He speaks for them.
That’s a generalization, but as a generalization it works. Liberal arguments do not have much to do with what’s going to be done, they concentrate on all the glittery things that make some spangled leader all wonderful and hopey.
That means, when they’re defending the celebrity from a criticism, they need to go to the personal attributes of the critic. It won’t take long.
And women have thin skins. Or let’s tighten that one up for accuracy: Our society has a thin skin about women. How many times have you seen a commercial where the wife is using Brand X and her husband swoops in with the Good Stuff to show her how it’s done? That doesn’t work on Madison Avenue, because it won’t play in Peoria. Women are not to be insulted. Just isn’t done. If a man figures out the right answer quicker than the woman, that’s an insult.
So you can’t insult women, and liberals can’t discuss their issues without insulting people. I think, yes, liberal men do court conservative women, but it just doesn’t last. We’re seen a survival-of-the-fittest scenario play out.
Also, there is the gun issue. If a couple starts to make a life together and it starts to look like a good idea to acquire a handgun, this has a different dynamic for women. So if it’s her position that it’s better to have it & not need it than vice-versa, and his position is the tried & true liberal groupthink of “don’t have it don’t look at it don’t think about it guns are bad bad bad,” then when the rubber meets the road the conversations are going to have to take on a rather unpleasant turn. They will only become as serious as the need for the gun; which, if it exists at all, is as serious as it gets.
No matter what the dynamic is, once a lady has figured out she can’t make a practical, lasting life with her beau — whatever the reason — it’s all over. Conservative or liberal, they got us beat here. Women think about the future, we think about their breasts, legs, other body parts, and how to enjoy them more often.
Also, liberal men cannot stand rejection. That’s how they get that way.
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Ok, my partner and I don’t fit many molds. Lesbian couple. V is liberal…sorry..Liberal. I am conservative, to the point of helping to found the American Conservative Party. She was once Secretary for the Chicago chapter of the Gay & Lesbian Taskforce. I was a fundi Christian, but now agnostic.
We both support candidates with money (not much) – often opponents in the same race.
We don’t have political fights. We both know where each other stands (and when she is intellectually honest – rather than squeezing that bleeding heart on her sleeve) she agrees with me more than she will EVER admit.
I think mixed political marriages can work, as long as the one that is RIGHT politely, quietly condescends to the other side.
YMMV
- tracycoyle | 10/07/2010 @ 08:15The thing about a conservative who is black, or gay, or female–even more so lesbian, is that they must be and are exactly like the person who does the right thing when nobody is looking. It is not an exercise in looking good.
- jamzw | 10/07/2010 @ 20:38I wonder if the underlying condescension by the women here towards their partners is widespread. They don’t really believe the things they say, you see, they just do it to be contrary, or to shock people. How could they be nice people and be conservatives?
- chunt31854 | 10/08/2010 @ 17:11Chunt (?) Condescension towards liberals is the only way to live with them. It has nothing to do with women, or lesbians, or gays. The average liberal NEVER believes they are at fault – hence their belief that people that are not successful are OBVIOUSLY victims of some terrible injustice. Most people that are conservative and married to liberals have learned to live with being accused 100% of the time for all the things that don’t go as planned.
Oh, and because the liberal thinks they ‘are for the common man’ they think it makes them nicer people – when their racist/sexist/elitist attitude is empty arrogance.
- tracycoyle | 10/08/2010 @ 17:42RE: Conservative women and liberal men. I think it’s much simpler than you think. Conservative women think liberal men are not real men, but wusses. That’s about as much a comment on personal character, and as far away from the world of ideas, as it gets. And what man in his right mind would tolerate that.
- huckupchuck | 10/09/2010 @ 09:54