A talk with my conservative friend

Well if I gotta be up all night I'd just as soon be paid for it.  Money's a bit scarce these days so we grab it when we can.

Yes I shamelessly plugged the name of our blog on the above pic.  So sue me.  

I swear lately I've been dreaming of long ago arguments with my conservative buddy.  Arguments that got so heated that of course we'd migrate to the outer edges of extreme.  Maybe because I no longer have an outlet.  Guess old guy's need a good argument once in awhile.  Just to keep the juices going.  Funny thing about it, is his voice always got a little gruff, I wanted to say like Archie Bunker, but on reflection, I think it was more like Gruff the "Take a bite out of Crime"dog. Or that's how I remember it anyway.  They kind of went like this.  Especially after a few beers and maybe a good steak.  Sitting in his living room on his turf of course.  A topic or two might come up ripe for spirited conversation.

Me on Air Traffic Controller's after a near disaster from a sleepy controller:  'Yeah I think they should have a guy on reserve considering it's an exhausting job and the price of lives that might be lost in an accident."

Him:  "That guy should be fired.  It's a waste of money.  It's his responsibility."  

Me: " You mean even if you were on that plane, you wouldn't want somebody on reserve case the guy got tired?"

Him:  With kind of a growl here. " No! It's his responsibility and he should be held fully accountable.  That's what you hired him for."

Me: "Even if you were on that plane?"  Him:  "I'd be fine with that."

He'd chortle a little on this thinking there was no comeback.  And y' know there really wasn't one.  Sometimes there just wasn't sense to be made.  Corners picked and no surrender.  So we'd both agree to disagree and conversate onto another topic.

Me on health care:  "Every civilized country in the world has universal health care and view it as a right"

Him: " Everybody always wants something for nothing.  Where'd you get an idea like that."

Me: The US pays the most for healthcare and has the lowest outcomes.

Him:  God don't you get tired of reading those "Liberal Blogs".

Me, because I really didn't know of any liberal blogs at the time and didn't know this term was referenced all the time on FOX news,  " What liberal Blogs?"

Him:  "The one's you read all the time".

Me things getting a little louder now "You're so, so full of shit."

But the funniest thing about my buddy was what I have come to view as a fairly familiar comeback. Tie it to ACORN  as somehow  (ACORN) utterance of that word could explain everything,  You Know ACORN.  Automatic win.  And of course I've learned since what that acronym stands for, for the life of me how he'd been able to reference that in any argument still escapes me. 

 Or he could attack the source ,or "liberal media",which in his mind, were equally powerful end gamer's.  The type my fragile liberal mind couldn't conceive of in "Conservative World".

On comeback he once said "Cuz it's in the Bible" he growled.  Now the reason this is so funny is because I suspect the average prostitute has more confessions under her belt than my buddy who is suddenly quoting the bible here.  Fact is,  the only time he'd ever been in a church was for the occasional have to be there thing, like weddings and funerals. And I knew damned good and well he'd never read a lick of it.  So I reminded him that he could also be executed for eating shrimp.  "Bullshit, where does it say that"?  I said with my jaw tucked in, "Leviticus" which was the only section I could remember a name of, having heard it on television or somewhere's.  And handily, a word I could pronounce.  Like I really knew anything about Leviticus.  But I had heard something about shellfish being bad somewhere's. And damned if he didn't get a thoughtful look on his face and decided I must know what I was talking about. So he'd clam up. Argument won.  For ten minutes anyway.  So we'd sit  sipping beer for a bit, kind of like Hank Hill, while he flipped endlessly through the channels on tv.   Just try to get that remote and you'd be lucky to keep all your fingers. He'd even hijack your remote on the oft chance he'd come to your house. God help you if you were watching Bill Maher or MSNBC.

        So after a bit of silenece,  somebody might maybe pass a little gas, just for added insult. Then he would throw out the first volley,  "If I have to watch somebody sing or dance again, everybody's just singing and dancing all the time".  " I'm just going to stop watching TV".  Like that would've ever happened.  I'd get a grin on my face, a big one, the type you can feel stretch from from one side of your face to the other and the fight was on.  We could usually arrive at a consensus, but it might not be very pretty getting there.  Hell, we could've run the government a helluva lot better than it's being run now. But the reason I'm talking about it here is that I really remember these being the good times.  Conversations with a good friend over forty years.  He died sometime back.  Maybe those conversations evolved sometimes to something that an outsider would have some problems understanding. Especially between sixty year old guys approaching senior citizenship. Of course these words didn't reflect who he was, maybe even the exact opposite of what he was.  But he's gone now and those times are over.  And to tell the truth, I miss the hell out of him and them.