Okay, I'm confused: Is laughter still okay?

Keep your humor off my uterus, you racist!

As late as only a few years ago my friends and coworkers and I used to debate politics all the time. We were civil to each other, respected each other's difference of opinion, and enjoyed the give-and-take.

With people I've met lately, I've noticed that anyone with whom I disagree politically, takes my disagreement as a personal insult. As if, my not agreeing with them is equivalent to insulting their children. My more recent friends and I don't debate politics or much of anything. I keep everything on an even keel. Politics is personal to them.

The intolerance really seemed to gain traction with the McCain-Obama election cycle. Liberal coworkers expressed surprise that anyone could support a ticket with "that woman" on it. When I explained that, of the four candidates in that race, only "that woman" had ever run anything, private or public, they countered with sputtering condescension. The Chosen One was in the race and any who did not support him was unworthy.

Then the Right joined in and instead of a defense of tradition and arguments against identity politics and PC, we got Richard Spencer and the Klan.

And it's only getting worse.

Everyone is a fanatic these days.

By the way, I hate paywalls. And linking to articles hidden behind them is annoying. Not the linking, the paywall itself.

Still, you did provide a long quote, so we do get the gist of the article. However, to read it all myself is not possible, unless I subscribe.

With paper, I can buy one edition at any newsstand. Why can't someone come up with a digital model for that?

The companies do it themselves on social media. I'll get a notification about an article in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, from the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, click the link and be greeted by a paywall. It's your own goddamned link. At least let the people following you on Twitter or Facebook read the article you're promoting.

It seems everything is going behind a pay wall or subscription model these days. I wanted to catch Season 7 of GoT but I don't have HBO. No problem. After all, I caught the first 6 seasons on Amazon Prime by buying/renting the entire season and watching while on the treadmill. One episode per each one hour workout. No longer. Now, to watch an HBO show on Amazon Prime, I have to subscribe to an HBO package through Amazon. Same with the BBC if I want to watch programs from PBS on Amazon. So, I'll have to pay $8 a month for Amazon, $14 a month for HBO, and $14 a month for the Beeb.

Or I could buy the DVDs, but the DVD doesn't play on my iPad while I'm on the treadmill. Maddeningly inconvenient.

/rant

Or you can go to the dark, dusty corners of the interwebs with a trusty VPN and find freshly ripped copies of those shows.

Not that I've ever done anything like that, no sir, I know nothink!

Let them rant a bit about whatever 'issue' is bugging them and then ask the forbidden question:

"What are you doing to change that?".

Good times. Good times!!

You can read paywalled articles from the WSJ by using the archive.is website.

Counter any offensive joke someone tells with a joke about a group THEY identify with. If they get huffy, you say, "It's just a joke! I thought we were all sharing jokes!"

The family my SIL married into loves to tell racist jokes. They do not appreciate Catholic/priest/nun jokes, however.

Thanks, Six. That worked.

They do not appreciate Catholic/priest/nun jokes, however. ~ sofar at October 24, 2017 11:03 AM

I used to know a monsignor who told Irish jokes, Catholic jokes, and Jesus jokes - sometimes all at once and often during his sermon.

None of them were offensive and his congregation loved him.

@conan I learned my arsenal from my Irish-Catholic family. All are offensive and the arsenal grew significantly during the priest scandal. If I told an offensive Catholic joke, my dad and uncles would enter a fierce competition to top it.

SIL's family's is, shall we say, a bit more devout and has a priest and several nuns in the family. They do very much like jokes about others, but not at their own expense, it seems, making it all the more fun.

I remember trading Jesus jokes back and forth with a pastor we had once, in between services. They were the mild kind, with punchlines like:

- Did you come here to play golf or just show off?

- Who does he think he is, Jesus Christ? No, He thinks He's Arnold Palmer.

I don't think the really sacrilegious kind would have gone over all that well, though.

Since we are off-topic with "offensive" jokes I'll share a joke that one of my Irish (as in Ireland-born and raised; NOT Irish American) friends told me.

It take place back in the days of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Two men see a stranger in their neighborhood and want to know who he is and what he is doing in their neighborhood (surely looking for trouble or trying to avoid trouble). So, they start by asking him if he is Protestant or Catholic. He looks at them and states that he is Jewish.

The two men look at each other with a quizzical look not sure what to make of this stranger until one of them then asks the man: "well, okay. But are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?"

So, I guess the joke isn't off topic after all; fanatics of any sort can't see reason.

That's a good lesson for the two feuding politicians @SenBobCorker and @realDonaldTrump. They should knock it off and get to work on tax reform.

My tweet to that effect.

(I'm sure Crid will come along and tell me there is no hope for Trump being more civil, but as a bonus, I did properly finger the two of them as morons in my tweet, in this case.)