Politics, friends, lovers & significant others.

As far as friends go, I have good friends from all over the spectrum. There's a limit though: if a person's core values work against mine, a deep friendship can not occur.
However, my best friends tend all to be on the left, when i think about it.
There is one particular friend of mine, a very good female friend, who I know I simply must not bring up politics with. She is a self-defined "wanna-be-an-american". Don't ask me to explain that: but it makes sense to me.
If I start rattling about a particular issue that she disagrees with, her face will get all red and I know to change the subject. Or, she will say "I can't talk about that, because I don't want to fight with you."

As far as lovers go, I seem to be attracted to political types. I enjoy the sense of being intimate enough to debate/argue back n' forth about politics without harming the relationship. I am an opinionated (some say Too Opinionated) person myself.
To me: there must be a firm base of love and respect to begin with to do this. Sometimes it can even strengthen and add fire to the relationship. They must be a person who holds the most vital of my values. I like the sense of sharing a common vision w/ my lover.
This isn't always the case. I've been with people who don't have anything close to my politics: but these tended to be casual or short-term relationships.

I look at politics as being an extension of person's values and life.
I have to respect each person, and their choices (political and otherwise).
I do not have to become good friends with them all, and I don't have to comprimise my own sense of myself for them.

I also am not keen on fanatics. Is anybody - except for other fanatics?!

Thank you all, for your thoughtful responses. I feel as though I know *who you are* a little better from reading them.

I'm quite intrigued now, by what seems to be the inter-connection between politics & religion from a number of US posters when it comes to defining personal values. Very different to where I live. Very interesting!

Let me tell you about my good friend, D. I've known her for something like 18 years & we certainly have had our ups & downs! Often about "political differences"! Lots of arguments, I can tell you!
D will often come out with a comment that has left me thinking: "How racist!" or " Surely you can't admire that (conservative) politician?", etc, etc ...
But, but, I don't know anyone whose as compassionate to animals, constantly rescuing other folks' discarded critters. (An obvious winning quality with me! ) And, despite her words that sound so racist & intolerant, I know few people who are as kind & generous toward the migrant children she works with daily. On top of that, on a couple of occasions in my life when I really needed help, D was there & pulled out all stops to assist in every possible way. So, over the years I've reached a point where I really admire & appreciate D's actions & pay much less attention to her words. She is remarkably kind & empathetic to people & animals in trouble. Sure, we have our disagreements, but really, I value who she is & what she actually does so much more than the sometimes confronting things she says.

Yeah; what you were saying about your friend D....
that is how I feel about my good friend is the 'wanna-be-an-american'.

I live in Canada: the Americans definetly do approach politics in a different way . However, when I stayed a summer in Quebec, I got a whole new political education! Just a side-note.

Yes? Do tell, flushd

Oh, interesting thread, this.

I had a romance once with a beautiful, intelligent young woman who was a self-confident supporter of the right-wing party in her country, and our political differences did us no harm... a), because we had other things on our mind (bliss) and b), because they made for interesting conversations.

Whether it's a bonus or an obstacle I think depends more on the way someone discusses things and presents their opinion. I've had awkward near-rows with friends of pretty much the same persuasions as me, but who disagreed on some specific thing, and it was more because of how the discussion went than what it was about. It seems sometimes that those who are not so confident or well-versed in their opinions can be the most unpleasant to disagree with, because feeling defensive, they turn aggressive on you. All the more if the subject is one of those where they already feel defensive because one is not 'supposed' to feel the way they do (ie, on immigrants, muslims).

Thing is, though. I dont mind friends of different opinions at all, I think its interesting. Yet my circle of friends, especially the Dutch ones, are almost collectively all roughly in the same political corner anyway. I once spent some time thinking about this, mapping it kinda (what do I think who votes?), and guesstimated that about half of my friends & acquaintances in Holland voted for the same party as I do, the Green Left - even though it gets just 6% in the national elections. Imagine! Plus, almost all of the other half would have voted Socialist or Labour or at most Democrat. I've had two acquaintances, the past ten years, who voted right-wing liberal, and you know ... I knew that they did, it was exceptional. Nuff said.

So how does that work? I dunno. I honestly dont think I sort them out that way, which is kinda confirmed by how, among the friends I made in other countries, the scope of opinion has been much wider. I think its more to do with the self-selection of social circles. In students' houses at least you still get a random mix of people: there was a very active member of the local Christian students' association and a girl who I think later became the first female rabbi (lost touch). But otherwise, you know: at university I studied history, faculty of Arts; I did my internships at the university, one at a research centre on ethnic relations; my first proper job was at a migrant NGO; I did volunteer work at film festivals, in a theatre-cafe where they had experimental/alternative concerts too; the people you meet at all of those places are generally by definition going to all be in roughly the same political corner. Sometimes I think it comes more as a cultural marker, part of one's self-identification in terms of (sub)cultural niche, than as a deliberate consideration of views or anything.

The effect is all the clearer here because of the multi-party system; not just are most all people in those places left-wing, but most of them specifically gravitate toward the party thats associated, you know, with students, the young unemployed, the artistic/cultural folks, the conscious, nuanced NGO crowd: the Green Left. The Socialist Party simply attracted a different kind of crowd, at least five or ten years ago (now many of my friends are drifting over to it after all).

Definitely all kind of scary. Found that abroad I was more likely to meet people outside the niche I just naturally moved in at home. One of the first proper friends I made abroad was both piously Catholic and hardline, unreformed Eastern-Bloc communist . Then there was the girl I mentioned above. Its cool, better that way. But I'm also aware that the whole Green Left-ish-type scene at home is part of a cultural stratum of sorts, which just feels naturally like home the way nothing here does. Got to do with having common frames of references, common experiences or memories or associations with images or words -- its kind of sickly but sometimes, when I find that as soon as you go into detail nothing you say here is self-evidently grasped or understood the way you meant it, I do miss it.

nimh makes really good points.

One of the most torrid relationships I had was with someone who tended conservative -- he was in fact my introduction to the kind of reasonable conservative I didn't really know existed in my previously extremely lefty life. I'd pretty much thought they were all idiots. He and I had some very heated discussions that made a big impression on me even though I still thought he was basically wrong.

He was more willing to put up with lefty me than I was willing to put up with him in the end, though. Were a lot of different factors involved, hard to say how much politics was a part of it. He was several years older than I was, etc.

E.G. and I line up pretty closely, to the point where he just asks me, "What do I think about [political situation]?" (Note, not "what do you think...") I think we've influenced each other, though, too.

Most of my friends lean left, but it's not a condition of friendship, at all. E.G.'s dad is way conservative and we poke at each other about it the same way we poke each other about Cowboys/ Packers. It's not a verboten subject, but we keep it light.

One of E.G.'s good friends has been historically very conservative and he and I have had big long email wars (friendly ones though), he's one of my favorite conservatives to argue with (I keep trying to get him here). "Historically", though, he didn't vote for Bush this time and is getting madder and madder at him. I take credit. <breathes on fingernails, buffs 'em> No, no, just kidding.

Re: Politics, friends, lovers & significant others.
First, some background about my politics. I was born in 1969 to a pair of parents whom Germans would call "liberal", Americans would call "very moderately libertarian", and who would fit in somewhere near the "Democratic Leadership Council" in today's America. When I developed an interest in politics on September 17, 1982, I started out as a liberal (American definition) with a few pinkish spots here and a couple more greenish ones there. Then, in a slow process beginning on November 9, 1989, I evolved into the fairly radical libertarian I am today. My views are likely to change over the next years as well. I strongly believe in following good arguments wherever they may lead, and I would hate to think I might spend the rest of my political life as a partisan bigot.


Not very. My list of traits I value in a friend or partner starts with some combination of honesty, intelligence, charm and loyalty, and I think there are at least five more items before it gets anywhere close to politics.


To the small extent that I care at all, I prefer to have people around me that are different than myself. It's not just about politics. For example, I live in a borrough of Munich that has an international reputation for its diversity of occupations and nationalities. A fairly consistent non-smoker myself, all of my friends in school were smokers for some reason. Likewise, I tend to have people around me whose politics are very different from mine. I cannot think of any libertarians among my closer real-life friends. And in most cases, when we started talking politics, there was some point were I got a reaction from them that was some political variation on the theme: "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Of course, it's in the nature of mixed-politics-friendships that when you're arguing, you're arguing fairly and friendly. So while I don't care much about my friends' politics, I care very much about a particular way political arguments are settled. I can be friends with communists and fundamentalist Christians, but they've got to be open-minded, rational, and willing to be corrected by the facts.


Does not apply to me, because there's no "despite" about it for me.


Of course -- just like interracial and inter-religious relationships/friendships can.

OK, '89 is easy, but... <breaks his head trying to think of what happened on September 17, 1982>

The elections, when Kohl became Chancellor?

The Bundestag's "constructive vote of no confidence" against Schmidt and for Kohl -- especially the very passionate, sometimes very theatrical, but still thoughtful debate that preceded it. As an aside, I would pay serious money for a DVD of that debate.

Some background for non-experts on Germany: In 1982, Germany was governed by a coalition between the Social Democrats (SPD) and the libertarianish Free Democrats (FDP). The FDP leadership, supported by its right wing, decided to change coalition partners in the middle of the parliamentary turn and start a new coalition with the Christian Democrats (CDU). But the FDP's left wing remained loyal to SPD chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who had lost a lot of support from his own party because it had drifted considerably to the left. A large part of the debate consisted of Social Democrats accusing right wing Free Democrats of treason, left-wing Free Democrats kind of agreeing with them, while Christian Democrats and right wing Free Democrats accused the SPD of betraying their own chancellor. I was especially impressed with the integrity of Hildegard Hamm-Brücher's speech in that debate. She may well be the reason I started out the way I did.

Since my family's own team was torn between loyalties and very conflicted with itself, I started asking a lot of questions in the aftermath. Not a bad way to get started with politics.

Yeah, but to return this thread to its topic . . . Did ya get laid ? ! ? ! ?

Not by Hildegard Hamm-Brücher.

Well, spill then . . . by whom, and was it from political conviction ?

That's a relief

Interesting background, btw, thank you for expounding.

Medical student who spent her first semester studying physics, as she killed time while waiting for an opening at the medical faculty. Political conviction was CSU, a Bavarian mutant of the CDU that is even more conservative. Otherwise a really nice young lady -- we're still friends. We didn't debate much about politics, though we did have some rather heated discussions about religion.

It shows to go ya . . . neither politics nor religion have any place in social encounters . . .

Even CSU girls have sex before marriage? What is this world coming to, I ask you...

On, the girls of Colorado State University are notorious . . .

Nothing wrong with a little compassionate conservatism.