I had a rather useless and unproductive attempt at a conversation with some conservative/trump [View all]

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supporters. It wasn't even trying to make any sort of politicalized statement. I'd say it was even more of an academic discussion attempt. We were talking about the shooting in FL and terrorism came into the conversation. All I said was that terrorism is difficult for me to define and I was curious how they define it. Basically bringing up the Dylan Roof thing and how he was obviously mentally ill, but he also was influenced by racist ideologies and all that stuff. Then asking how that compares to say a self-radicalized jihadist with a history of mental illness read material from jihadist sources and posed with an ISIS flag etc, and then went out and commit some sort of acts of violence. That really seemed to have set them off and they just start babbling about nonsense totally unrelated to the conversation (saying how I always have to argue, mostly) They weren't too fond of me saying it's a bit early to make some assumptions about it being Islamic terrorist, and there is nothing to support that all yet.

I don't even know how to deal with these sort of people. I also see this on the left at times too, but not to the same extent. I'd also say when it comes from the left I might find it annoying, but I'm never 'fearful' of what is being said. If that makes any sense.

Why is it so difficult for a good portion of this country to have calm and rational discussions about difficult topics? People ignore the nuances and use broad brush strokes of black & white paint. Forget breaking things down and attempting to understand or think for ourselves. Let others tell us how to think and what we should preach to others. It's not like we actually have to be able to understand and defend our positions, because we don't listen to other's criticism anyway. We just talk AT people until they shut up.


*I suppose it's always possible I'm the difficult one and I just don't realize it.