I'm starting to piss off Republican friends and family

[markpkessinger]

69. Wow -- so many of us have been dealing with this . . .

. . . and I'm no exception. I'm the youngest of five siblings. The eldest, a sister, and I are pretty much in sync politically speaking. The third and fourth eldest, a third sister and my brother, are what I would call habitual (as opposed to ideological) conservatives -- their instincts are conservative, but you can reason with them and have a productive discussion, and often find a great deal of common ground. But the second eldest, another sister, has gone off the deep end, along with her husband, into tea party madness. And wouldn't you know it, she's the one who is always bringing up politics when we all get together. It's gotten pretty ugly at times. The thing I've noticed -- and I've commented about it here before -- is that at a certain point you come up against this vitriol that is positively volcanic in its explosiveness. It got to the point that the other three and myself have all had to positively put a stop to ANY political discussion whatsoever when the second eldest is around. Sad, really.