Do you ever make a friend on fb (or in real life) who you respect and like tremendously...but then they come out of left field with some wacky statement or belief that completely changes your opinion of them?

It doesn’t sound wacky to me.

It doesn’t sound wacky, but I don’t understand what this statement has to do with inmates paying for anything. That’s the confusing part. My guess is that she had been working on this conversation for a while, and cut and pasted the wrong parts, and leaving out others. I’ve accidentally done the same thing (facepalm). You might want to ask her what she meant by her abrupt change of topic and see what she says.

Do you think her opinion is wacky or just her timing? ( now I’m going to your Facebook page to see what exactly you are talking about.)
When I first started reading this I thought you might be talking about me.

What snowberry and flutherother said.

The only wacky part is her use of “an” instead on “a” before the word “Red.”

It’s not exactly on topic, but how the hell are inmates supposed to pay for their own food and healthcare? They can’t exactly get decent-paying jobs in prison. That makes no sense to me.

@livelaughlove21 :: My mom did ten years in prison. A company called Spectra-Physics opened up shop in the prison. They make a lot of super-market scanners to read bar-codes. My mom used to assemble them while in prison for under a dollar a hour. She was allowed to spend this at the canteen for things like packets of ramen that cost over a dollar (I can get the same at Safeway for under ten cents). Again, run by private companies. And when she got out she owed 1200 to get off parole, again, a private company.

@johnpowell So…are you agreeing or disagreeing with me? If she would’ve had to pay for her regular meals and doctor’s visits while in prison, she probably wouldn’t have made it 10 years, right?

My step-brother is currently incarcerated. He works in the kitchen for about 50 cents an hour. There’s no way he could feed himself for that amount of money.

Oh, basic stuff was covered. The extra from doing shit work for pennies was just extra.

@johnpowell I know that. I’m confused as to what your point is…

I made the comment that it’s ridiculous to expect prisoners to pay for their own meals and you told me about your mom, so I asked if you were agreeing or disagreeing with me. Perhaps it was just a story and you were doing neither.

It was neither. Everything doesn’t have to be a fight.

Yep

@johnpowell…what? If you were agreeing, how would it be a fight? It was just a question. Sheesh. Normally when someone puts ”@username” at the beginning of a response, they’re specifically responding to what that person wrote, not just making a general comment.

There is no move on to stop women from voting. If any of you think that’s even remotely a possibility I have to check my own reality.

Here is the entire context: I shared this. My accompanying post said, “Um, how are they supposed to pay for this?” (Their meals and doctor’s bills.) Then the discussion segued into someone supposedly trying to take the right to vote away from women. I said “What??”
She said ” It’s out there! Look at what Kris Kobach is trying to do. ”
So I looked him up and found articles where he was trying to force folks to prove their citizenship. It was an idea proposed to prevent illegal aliens from voting, not “women.” It created problems, apparently, for many people, not just women.
A judge recently shot down Kobach’s proposal.

And, to her credit she thanked me for the update.

On the other note, I would think inmates, with no bills, nothing else to do, would like having a job of some sort.

As long as the person’s involved are respectful to each other and their beliefs or opinions aren’t based on hatred and destruction, I think there is no harm in continuing the friendship. You can avoid them if they pressure you to believe as they do or repeatedly argue about the same issue over and over again with the sole purpose of upsetting you. Just keep in mind that the goal of any argument is to come to an understanding, not to have anyone change their opinion.

Back to the original question, I remember finding out a person I respected and admired on one site and a crazy flame-baiter on another site were the SAME PERSON. I still can’t believe it! I kept looking at posts from both sites and everything good on the one site seemed tainted somehow.

I also remember when some relative of mine out of nowhere just said “I don’t believe in mixing the races. It’s against God” It was odd because nobody was talking about racial stuff in the first place. It was also odd to find out he was so religious and had such outdated opinions.

I once had a friend who I thought was very polite and funny, until he told me that he once raped a girl.
I never spoke to him again. I was shocked, and to this day I don’t know if he was joking or not, but I will never feel comfortable with him after that.

The OP’s example is probably hyperbole or sublimation, likely born of frustration or concern about something else that may only be tangentially or even not at all related. If you Google it, you can find fringe examples of even women saying women shouldn’t vote. Okay, they’re nuts, but not very powerful. What you can also find is a litany of political forces actually stacked against women’s interests.

For example, that voting id stuff @Dutchess_III mentions impacts women more than men because women are much more likely to change their names due to marriage (sometimes repeatedly in one lifetime) and it creates a hassle for them. I doubt the people who push that want to stop all women from voting, but they might be pretty cool with the idea that fewer women vote because women are more likely to vote for libruls.

Yes. I made a friend in a science group and we often discussed the fact that we were atheists, and our thoughts about religion, but then he turned out to be a Zionist. We had such a heated discussion about that, because, it just didn’t seem logical, given his other ideals and it struck me as being so utterly incongruent. We simply agree to never discuss that topic and get on with your chats about science.

@Dutchess_III They do have jobs. They just don’t make hardly any money for doing it.

kooky statements need to be cleared up, otherwise you’re not a friend just dumping someone.

I just remembered another one. I posted that a friend of my daughter had died unexpectedly in the middle of the night. This was a three year old girl. It had happened the night before. I was in shock.

One of my relatives posted to correct my grammar in that post. My affection for this person went down more than a nitch. How could they respond to a post about the death of a three year old with an off the wall comment about word usage?

@livelaughlove21 Yes, I know. But they get quite a bit in return, besides money, any way.

@KNOWITALL I did clear it up for her. To her credit she thanked me for the clarification. I just don’t get how someone could think, for a second, that there was actually any kind of push on to deny women the right to vote! Sure, there may be fringe elements who feel that way, but they are no threat. There are fringe elements who feel segregation should be brought back….but it won’t happen!

That’s very strange @keobooks. Very strange.

Yeah I met a nice girl on Cupid.com a few months ago, and we’ve had alot of interesting conversations. But last week we were discussing the Superbowl ad with the different nationalities singing America the Beautiful, and she said “If they like their language so much, they can move back to their country.” I was shocked at that level of ignorance.

@Dutchess_III How many times has that happened on fluther though? :)

The only surprises I get on fluther is learning of the fascinating occupations of some users who I’ve known for a few years, and had no idea what they did!