The following is the first installment of actual events that have occurred in the life of one Canadian living in San Francisco in 2016. Each will hopefully give SDA readers greater insight into the American leftist mindset.
One Saturday evening I was invited to a dinner party in an upper middle class part of San Francisco’s Richmond district. I didn’t realize until later that it was mostly a recruiting initiative for a certain Buddhist sect that is referred to by some as a cult but that’s for an entirely different story. Ten people were at the dinner, hosted by a truly lovely couple. One 20-something fellow, who we’ll call Anson, had just relocated from Chicago a week before. The following accurately depicts my conversation with him:
Anson: So me and my mom are intellectuals but we also like to do silly things and gambling is one of them.
– One hour later –
Anson: I don’t like to talk politics around people but I must tell you that I’m a big Bernie [Sanders] supporter and am even going to volunteer for him.
Me: So you don’t like Hillary?
Anson: Well, obviously I like her more than ANY of the Republicans but Bernie is my man.
Me: So I’m just guessing that you weren’t very good at math in school?
Anson (with a stunned look): Uhhhhh, what do you mean?
Me: Well, given all of Bernie’s trillion dollar plans, WHO is going to pay for it all?
– Long Pause –
Anson: Like I said, I don’t want to talk politics around others.
Me: Though you had no problem starting on the subject of politics and now you’re advocating your support for a socialist. Are you aware that similar socialist ideas almost bankrupted my country in the 1970’s?
Anson: I don’t want to talk politics.
He didn’t speak to me again.
Well that’s pretty typical of leftists. They babble until they get pinned down on their lunacy and then they take off in a huff. They often do it by saying that they have been “bullied”. Facts and reality aren’t “bullies”…..they simply exist. Much to the chagrin of leftists.
Math is hard…
Politics prove it.
Guess he must have taken after his father’s side.
I look forward to reading the conversation with a lefty advocate of single-payer healthcare who’s so excited to learn you’re from Canada.
Either the subject gets changed quickly or else they go on and on as if you never said anything.
Heck, I could write that one myself.
I have two nephews in Manitoba that are staunch NDP’ers. They have no problem telling me about their politics but the second I call ’em on their bs by asking them who’s gonna pay and what happens when the jobs leave along with the folks that used to run businesses – I’m told that they don’t want to talk politics anymore. Lefties have no problem giving it but have no intention of taking it. Which in my eyes that makes them idealogical cowards.
Thanks Robert. I look forward to following more of your story.
“He didn’t speak to me again”
Consider yourself lucky!
Bernie Sanders is my man.. ha
Turns 75 years old in Sept 2016 and he ain’t no Ronald Reagan.
More like a Jimmy Farter..
both of them should be in a nursing home..
The non debate in politics today boils down to those who hide behind the mobs who want greater theft from productive individuals and those who want less theft. That’s why politics is more like a war with the ideological spoils going to the victor.
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“Well, given all of Bernie’s trillion dollar plans, WHO is going to pay for it all?”
well, of course it’s taxpayers like you and me…
“The Conservatives had imposed changes to bureaucrats sick-leave policies that saved hundreds of millions a year, money that will now be added to the deficit.”
repeal the security bill… repeal any audit of first nations… hand back major concessions to unions.
thanks justy.
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Shorter version:
Anson: So me and my mom are intellectuals but we also like to do silly things and gambling is one of them.
Me: So I’m just guessing that you weren’t very good at math in school?
You pretty much could have stopped there.
If there were enough stupid people in Canada to elect Justin, they are probably enough stupid people in the USA to elect Bernie or Hillary.
“I don’t want to talk politics.”
Leftists are strong on ideology, politics(which is policy) not so much.
I have mentioned this before but it fits perfectly with Robert’s story. A teacher friend started discussing islam with me and about the arrival of muslim refugees. When I said there are 14 public schools with mosques on Friday now in Ontario, totally against your TDSB human rights rules, he couldn’t believe it. I said these mosques take up the whole cafeteria and the girls enter by a separate entrance and sit separated from the boys by a line of tables with the menstruating girls not allowed to take part as they were “unclean”. He responded that the TDSB has strict rules and only a part of the cafeteria would be used and only at lunch. I had sent him all my correspondence with my school trustee about how she did not know what was taught to these young muslims. How this mosque took place during school hours and classroom disruption happened every Friday with this event.
I sent him the picture showing the entire cafeteria was used and the division between the sexes. Never heard from him again on this subject. The ignorance of the left is just astounding.
Try explaining that socialism is based on greed and selfishness.
That winds them up.
Then ask them if they have chosen an education path that will benefit the State, as all good socialists should do.
If they have chosen a useless degree that will not return beaucoup tax dollars to the State then they have cheated the State and the next generation of students.
Who will fund the next generation’s education in 16th century Guatemalen lesbian poetry?
Where will the tax dollars come from if he is a minimum wage barista?
Will his tax contributions a even pay off his own education costs?
Ask him to explain his selfishness.
“To each according to his need, from each….Oh look! A bunny!..”
Robert, I have to hand it to you for your cool in confronting the leftists.
When confronted with facts and truth they no longer want to discuss politics. It has been that way since October 1917. It is the Bolo way, a brick wall or the gulags, depending on the level of their control over society.
I have a son-in-law who, when discussing the state of health care in Canada, counters, when I tell him that there are 26 or so countries in the OECD (?) that have a better health delivery record than Canada with the US being #31, with that I just want US style health care. This after I just told him the US is #31 and we should see what the other 25 or so are doing better and why. He refuses to see the point.
Stan, “To each according to his need, from each…”. Now where have I heard that before. As I have mentioned numerous times, my family knows exactly how that works out in reality.
“This after I just told him the US is #31 and we should see what the other 25 or so are doing better and why. He refuses to see the point.”
I endured the same debating point for many years. Asking people what they thought of the system in Singapore, for example, drew nothing but blank stares. I came to realize that utilizing the passive-aggressive we’re-not-like-those-bad-Americans argument is one of the classic NDP strategies. That’s how they preserved one of the “purest” forms of single-payer health care in the developed world for so many years, right up there with Cuba’s.
What’s even funnier is that I’ve come to realize during my U.S. residence that, contrary to what I heard in Canada all those years, the U.S. “system” has suffered from too much, rather than too little, government involvement, and the Democrats down here long held out against such sensible reforms as competition across state lines and a cap on lawsuit verdicts until their dream came true with Obamacare.
Typical leftist they like to hear their own voices echoed from others. Constantly seeking approval and affirmation for their ideas without any thought of what they are saying and never taking responsibility for being self-supporting always blaming others for their wants not being meet.
It didn’t help that in the US, Canadians dpn’t really count.
… right up there with Cuba’s.
Whenever people hold up Cuba as an example of why single-payer is so great, I point them to the existence of Not Just Tourists and ask why, if Cuba’s health care system is doing so well, they need to rely on expired medication and twenty year old medical textbooks from Canada.
competition across state lines and a cap on lawsuit verdicts
I bring these two up as the “instant fix” for “US-style health care” all the time and get blank stares. Even better, when I point out that Texas had amazing results by capping pain-and-suffering awards at $250,000 the response in inevitably “oh, well, that’s Texas”. Because they’re all uneducated rubes down there, apparently, and anything they do is automatically dumb. Because Texas.
We all know how this works. It’s not about quality of care or actual results for lefty progs. It’s pure virtue signalling and public moral preening. Call them out on that, don’t waste your time trying to argue facts.
“…Anson: So me and my mom are intellectuals …”
Whenever someone tells me they are an intellectual it turns out to be not true.
If some one tells you they’re an intellectual, ask them how they did in calculus and physics and what they think of the progress toward a unified field theory. If they’re opposed to private involvement in health care, ask them why they want to emulate the North Korean health care system. If they extoll the virtues of Cuba, ask them when they’ll be moving there for work or retirement. If they’re in favor of a “workers’ revolution” ask them if they’re studying welding or plumbing, if not, why not? The typical leftist “argument” is some combination of self-righteous, condescending sneer, smear disappear. When they’re caught they typically try to lie their way out.
My ace-in-the-hole for dealing with leftists is my cousin’s husband, a former Viet Cong who subsequently fled Viet Nam after the communist take over. He said if he had it to do over he’d have tried to join the US Marines. I don’t know if they’d have taken him, but it’s interesting to see the look on lefties’ faces when I tell them about it including his less-than-Hollywood-hero escape attempts.
“Bernie Sanders is my man.. ha Turns 75 years old in Sept 2016”
Of course, that’s not an issue if a candidate is a Leftist Democrat. But do you remember all the reports, ad nauseum, about John McCain and questioning whether or not he may not survive his first term if elected?
Or how about Dick Chaney and his bad heart and could he take over as President if anything happened to W?
You see, it’s only Republicans who are too old.
Democrats, on the other hand, will live forever.
I remember when Gordon Campbell traveled to Europe to view the best of public health care…I had a chance to ask him personally about Switzerland…”oh, we didn’t go there” he says. “But it is the best system in Europe” says I. “it wasn’t on our itinerary.”
“Leftists are strong on ideology, politics(which is policy) not so much.”
Josef Stalin was strong on both ideology and politics.
“Beat, beat and again best.” J. Stalin
“(How) can one man withstand the pressure of that astronomical weight (of the state)?” J. Stalin
He has such a great skill with English grammar, how could you doubt his intellectualism?
“…Anson: So me and my mom are intellectuals …”
you said he is 20-something so you should have known that the 1970s didn’t exist lol
Suffice to say, I make a point of correcting them every time one tells me that I’m “so lucky because health care in Canada is free”. Here in California, combined federal & state income tax is about 31% for my tax bracket. Back in Vancouver, it was around 41%. When I point this out to even the most ardent American Leftists, they shudder.
Daniel, glad you picked up on that line and his explicit mention that he was an “intellectual”. I’ve consistently found that anyone who points out to you that they’re an intellectual is truly anything but.
Amen brother…
Actually, most Canadians are highly regarded here. You have no idea how many times I’ve heard, “ALL Canadians are sooooo nice.”
While that’s pleasant to here, it simply not true.
As for what they think of me not towing the perceived standard Leftie Canadian line, I sense that they’re somewhat baffled.
… Ask them how they are going to pay for it … ? My leftist friends have no problem whatsoever explaining how it will all get paid-for. Following are Their collection of pat answers:
1. Tax the RICH
2. Tax the Corporations
3. Tax Fossil Fuels
4. Get everyone to Pay Their Fair Share
5. Raise the gas Tax
6. Legalize Marijuana … and Tax the hell out of it
7. Release all the ‘non-violent’ Felons (esp. drug crimes) from prison
8. Remove all the Corporate Tax “loopholes”
9. Stop funding Israel
10. Cut the Military
When I suggest to them that the MATH reveals NONE of these measures (separately, or collectively) will pay for their liberal wish list … they say I am just a dumb Conservative who is on the side of the Rich and is a Corporate lackey. As Christ warned … “There are none so blind, as those who will not see”
You don’t have to go all the way to San Francisco to find wistful leftist dreaming. Don Pittis of “The Business Unit” at CBC News has the formula to growing the “new” Canadian economy:
1. Deficit spending.
2. Hire more government employees.
3. Higher taxes for business.
4. More unionization, especially for the $15/hr crowd.
5. Celebrate science (e.g. more climate change).
6. Celebrate arts and culture.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/economic-renewal-parliament-canada-1.3413525
Why this guy didn’t get a Nobel Prize in Economics, I’ll never know.
California is a land of morons. Enough said.
The grammar is the give away there.
and some beech babes
The instant they’re losing, they retreat ….. but those relentless $#!t-for-brains lefties NEVER EVER surrender! They ALWAYS come back to fight another day.
Stalin was a Totalitarian Dictator.
Like your “prophet” Muhammad, it wasn’t about left or right or even religious ideology for a Totalitarian Dictator, it was about Iosef Stalin the Dictator or Muhammad the Rapist Murderer Cult Death Leader, child F*cker, Truce Breaker, Epileptic…
Well, people get my meaning. A Mohammadan like you, probably not.
Robert: I met a person once, who was in there 20’s..and they said dumb things. True story!
Ahh Cuba. My son went there on a trip. Paid for it himself…no big deal. I did tell him that I wasn’t impressed because he was supporting a communist regime. He has mentioned ‘things’ he observed that backed up my theories on how repressive Cuba really is. We’ve never spoke much about his trip since then.
Afterwards when my daughter was mentioning that she may want to get married in a tropical locale I said fine whatever works for you. But…I also was adamant that I would not go to Cuba for her wedding. She and my wife thought that was unreasonable. I reiterated that I would not go. They said that was selfish. I said….well I don’t care and I told my daughter if she wanted to get married in Cuba she could but that I would not be there. She is getting married in our hometown.
I don’t care if any Canadian goes to Cuba…but when they tell me they did I don’t ask how their trip was…I basically ignore that they were even there. I am not going to acknowledge their decision to support a dictatorship. If they wish to further their conversation I will oblige….but my response likely won’t be appreciated.
As Rush said: “People are not going to vote against Santa Claus”.
Or at least those people who have, to use the old expression, “Shit for Brains”.