Anyone you know ever said anything to you that's made you change your opinion of them?

[TrustPenguins]

Kind of light-hearted but...

Two examples recently:

1. A friend admitted (rather sheepishly) that he voted Tory. He said it was because of Labour's intended VAT on private school fees (his children go to private school). That was his sole reason.

I feel this was selfish and he wasn't looking at the bigger picture. I've always been taught to vote with the most vulnerable person you know in mind and of what is in their best interests. I was also shocked that a good friend would vote Tory full stop!

1. Another friend said he was supporting Spain in the football last night. Apparently his Mum is Scottish and his Dad is Scouse so they've never supported England (friend is English). When England played Italy in the previous final, he was cheering on Italy. When Italy won, he was celebrating whilst his kids were crying (they were supporting England). Just seems strange to me.

Obviously anyone can vote for and support who they like but I just never expected these friends to say / do this, and rightly or wrongly, it has changed my opinion of them a bit.
Just when you think you know someone...! 🤣

Anyone got any other examples?

I used to be friends with someone but it then turned out:

She's purchased a child from a Ukrainian surrogate

She's an anti vaxxer

She won't brush her children's teeth with toothpaste 'because Fluoride is toxic' and she 'just wants to put water on the brush'

All 3 of these things absolutely disgust me and make me feel sick.

Gosh, your condescending baseless presumptions run deep. 🙄
If you bothered to properly read my earlier posts you’d see that I mentioned voting in a way that benefited the most vulnerable in society. Some of those will be people from other countries but a great many of them will be from our own. I tend not to discriminate when it comes to compassion. And whilst it might suit the narrative to talk about ‘champagne socialists’ or ‘bleeding heart liberals’ who care more for the poor abroad than the poor at home, it’s nothing more than a trope.
I’m also not sure why you place instinct in inverted commas in a way that suggests it’s untrue or nonsense. Surely everyone votes based on instinct? It’s just the nature of that instinct that differentiates.
However, this is getting too far off on a tangent from the thread title.

This upset me much more than it should have! Attitudes to animals is a big one.

I found out this person really liked Andrew Tate. A woman. Seriously.

Also loves Trump and thinks he’s really attractive.

I realise you see yourself as a good and virtuous person simply for ticking a box every five years. You see your decision in how you personally vote as benefiting the most vulnerable in society and you describe yourself as compassionate. I'm just repeating what you write. I don't mean for what you write to come across as condescending when I repeat it. Apologies.

I bumped into a friend in an expensive shop where she was buying a very pricey dress. I made a lighthearted comment about how she was spending her money, she laughed and said it was her husband’s money. She doesn’t work. I went right off her.

It's wild that people actually use their vote to vote against their own self interest, and then accuse tory voters or brexit voters of being ignorant... Like, how privileged do you need to be to not worry about your own family? Crazy. You must have family money, I guess.

Either way, it's patronising to think you know what's best for other people. Especially when many of those people will tell you themselves you're wrong.

Well how very clever of you! 🙄
You have absolutely no idea who I am or how I spend my time between the tick box exercise and even if I chose to discuss it, which I won’t, you’d have no way of knowing whether it was true or not. 🤷‍♀️
FWIW, I don’t consider myself particularly virtuous in any aspect of my life. But yes, I do like to consider myself a good person; I would think that’s fairly normal behaviour. And no, before you go making further baseless assumptions, I don’t consider people who vote Tory not to be good people because as I said, we live in a democracy and everyone is entitled to use their vote as they see fit. People are multifaceted and their political leanings are just one aspect of that.

I haven't been making assumptions. I've just been repeating what you've been writing back to you, really. It's not my fault if you find the content of your own posts irksome.

It's great that you think that you are good. It's a nice thing to be able to announce.

@Barbadossunset why did she tell me the lie? She was a narcissist and had been trying to contol me. I was in a weird place - living with narcissistic exDP and in my free time being manipulated by narcissistic best friend. Like all narcissists, she enjoyed the power of being in control and thought it made her look better. I finally plucked up the courage to strike up on my own and she then realised that she was in danger of losing control of me. The lie was a last ditch attempt to put me off.

She regularly exaggerated/ lied to add impact to whatever point she was making. But this particular lie was desperate attempt to

No need to announce it but I’m sure it’s how most sane people view themselves. But as it happens, that was my reply to one of your assumptions; that I consider myself, good. Oh and virtuous was another assumption. Oh and what about my ‘preoccupation with people from other countries’ All nonsense and completely irrelevant to my perfectly valid point that I vote with my conscience.
And I’m not irked, I never get irked by nonsense on the internet. I just don’t see the point in why you quoted me in the first place.

You suggested I was only interested in ‘people who are here illegally’ when I had mentioned nothing about anyone here illegally. You then talked about my ‘preoccupation’ as mentioned above.

So no, you’re not quoting back to me what I’ve said, rather what you think I meant by what I said which isn’t the same thing at all-nor is it true. But why I’m bothering to respond, I don’t know. Feel free to have the last word; misquote, misrepresent or whatever. I’m off to bed.

When DS was in Reception & then year 1 at primary he was very good friends with a little girl in his class - as a result me and the Mum became friends and had coffee together, children had play dates etc. One evening after a school event her parents and DH and myself had drinks together at a local pub - my son and his friend were plying nicely together outside in the gardens - his friends Farther asked her what they were playing & she told him that they were playing families as when they grew up they were going to marry each other - as I walked back from the toilets I heard the little girls father say to his wife "she can do better than that adopted boy" - I was fuming - never saw them the same way again

My line manager who claims to be a socialist in favour of multiculturalism, once laughed at a very racist comment made by another colleague. He despises strong minded women and is incredibly patronising towards me (an Asian woman).

I know you aren't asking this OP, but YANBU. I also would change my opinion of someone voting Tory just based on a single issue that affected themselves. Some people are more selfish in their mindset so they don't get it.

"They don't get it". What do you mean? Get what? What is "it"? Why is voting for something that is important to someone and affects them directly "selfish". How do you judge what is "selfish" voting behaviour. Is it what @BurbageBrook decides on their behalf? And why are we not allowed to vote specifically Tory on a single issue that matters to us personally? What sort of issue don't you approve of? Are you allowed to vote for a single issue if you are a Labour voter?

People intolerant of how other people decide to vote in a democracy probably "dont get it" and shouldn't be allowed the freedom to vote exactly how they chose themselves.

Definitely. Cruelty to animals is something that would change my view of a person immediately.

The people who are voting on behalf of those they consider the most vulnerable, can I ask: do those people not have their own vote? If they don't, why do you think they should have yours and how do you know who you should vote for on their behalf?

Also if you're voting against your own interests, as some have claimed to do, why do you think these other people are more important than your own kids or parents?

If they do have their own vote, why do they also need yours?

I'm genuinely asking, because I do not understand why you would do this.

Probably because a society that takes care of everyone is a better place to live for everyone, even if it costs us a few quid more.

I think the difference is that belief in society.

Well if her husband doesn't mind why would you? Very odd!

I see you're genuinely puzzled. I can answer regarding the last Tory government. They ran down public services and didn't invest in basic infrastructure. They cut benefits and made other cuts that resulted in millions having to use foodbanks, the working poor, millions in child poverty and people dying because of cuts to the NHS. They also brought in the Rwanda scheme.

If you're wealthy and can afford private school and private health insurance, then austerity doesn't really affect you. However you'll still notice the lack of investment with potholes and lack of resources such as libraries.

Even though you're shielded from the worst of it, you can still observe what's going on, see the deprivation for yourself and want to live in a better society. That may mean extra VAT on school or higher tax but for some, those are necessary sacrifices to live somewhere more equal.

I understand that some would vote for a dystopian desert if it meant they were ok, but others care about people around them and want better for everyone, including themselves.

Okay, so you're not actually voting on behalf of the most vulnerable, but according to which party you think will bring about the most fair and equal society.

I can see that some people vote this way and other people vote according to what they think will bring about the best results for their own community, family, or income.

Obviously these two ways of voting are not connected to any specific political party, but based on the specific policies that you hope will bring the outcome you deem best. For example, I want women and girls to be able to live freely and without fear, so I wouldn't vote for a labour party who were keen to abolish women's rights to single sex spaces. This covers both the first and second conditions, since I am a woman, so it's a self-interested vote but also one that I believe is for the good of society in general.

I think I would find it very difficult to vote against my own self-interest because my self-interest also involves living in a society that works. I think it's interesting that people are presenting themselves as sacrificing their votes for those more vulnerable than themselves, when in fact they are just voting for the party they think has the best policies. The idea that voting one way is morally superior than another seems to be a bit of nonsense.

As I explained, you are voting against your own best interests (paying higher tax for example) for the benefit of having a better society. Those taxes will go towards alleviating poverty. Since you're not actually in poverty yourself it doesn't actually affect you but you want to contribute towards a better society for all.

Women were disproportionately effected by austerity and I would argue that someone who cared about women, wouldn't vote for more poverty for them. A rich feminist could therefore vote against her best interests and vote for a party that would help bring women out of poverty.

Yes you can vote against your self interest, although with the tax example, presumably you vote that way because it's also in your interest to have tax funded services. Another person might believe that fewer taxes creates more wealth in society and motivates innovation - they may well be voting on the basis of what they think makes a good society. It's not fair to assume it's selfishness.

But presenting it as using your vote on behalf of more vulnerable people is misleading (and horribly patronising!) You're not sacrificing for others, simply making choices about the kind of society you want to live in and voting for the party you believe will produce that. Which is what pretty much everyone does.

For the third time you are voting against your best interests if you don't rely on those services for example have private health insurance (don't need a GP/NHS), private school (don't need the local state school), live in an exclusive area and have a car so you don't need to rely on local infrastructure.

You could easily vote for a party that caters for you: small state, low taxes. However you want to live in a better, fairer society so you vote against your best interests (low tax for example) and vote for a party where you pay higher tax and your money goes towards the benefit of all.

If you don't want people carted off to Rwanda or don't want further cuts to disability benefits and services, want to eliminate foodbanks and want fewer children in poverty, then you would vote accordingly.

In that sense you are voting to help the most vulnerable in society and their situation doesn't directly effect you because you're not an asylum seeker, a child, hungry or disabled. Some people believe that we as a society should help the most vulnerable. They are voting on principles rather than their own narrow self interest.

I used to agree with quite a lot of what Nigel Garage said but at the time I genuinely had no idea he's into torturing and murdering animals ... fox hunting etc. and he worships Andrew Tate, Trump and other animal hating, women hating scumbags.

I've never ever had anything more to do with him!