These days I try to confine my political conversations to those people in my life that I know share some of my same views/beliefs/etc. And while I encourage open, peaceful, and intelligent discourse on hot-button topics, I try to remove myself from such conversations because, well, when I don’t I usually end up liking certain individuals a little less. Or a lot less, I guess, depending on the topic.

So I just had a conversation with a coworker on certain post-election topics that are so common these days. While I managed to maintain my composure and (fake) sweet nature, I feel somewhat ill.

So here’s what I took away from this conversation. Keep in mind that these words/themes/conclusions come from an intelligent (or so I thought), college-educated, middle-class, female minority from Ohio. Basically, these are the people that handed Bush the presidency. Again. I will keep my comments, for now, to myself. Here’s the gist of what she said:

1. The fact that Bush was reelected proves that Americans made the “moral” choice. Those of you who voted for Bush were not just voting for the president, you were voting for *morality*.

(By the way, if any of my readers are drinking something please stop now. I would hate to hear that you squirted liquid out of your nostrils onto your keyboard. That would be bad. Moving on…)

2. Movie stars need to stay out of the political debate (unless pro-Bush, of course). They have no place in the political arena. They are simply using their celebrity in the “wrong” way. If they don’t like our leaders, they should leave this country and make their movies elsewhere. They take our money and put down our country. The entire entertainment industry is corrupt. And musicians? Don’t even get started…

3. Those bastards in Iraq need to pay for what happened to us on 9/11! What? No connection between Iraq and 9/11, you say? Heresy! The 9/11 Commission Report is fiction! How GULLIBLE are you?

4. You know, during WWI and WWII there wasn’t the sort of media-coverage and propaganda that you see today. Many more people died in those wars than in this whole Iraq thing. So you hear reports on the news that one or two Americans died? It’s a small price to pay! People have been dying for their beliefs since the Crusades, since the beginning of time! If you don’t support military action in Iraq then you are un-American.

5. I don’t understand how all of these women think they can just go have abortions in order to do stem-cell research (because we all know that women who make that choice do it for science, right? Oh…sorry…I said I’d keep quiet) I mean, what if I decided to kill you at age 26 like these women decided to kill a fetus? It’s the same thing if you can think about it! So you don’t want the child? Give it up for adoption! What? You don’t want to be inconvenienced for nine months? You’ll live!

6. Gay = bad. Gay marriage = abomination.

7.Did you hear about all these people who committed suicide when Kerry conceded? What kind of idiot would do something like…er, um…nevermind.

There’s more, but I think I’m done for the moment. I have to go get ready to burn in hell alongside my dead boyfriend that I had pre-marital sex with. Later.