Step son right wing views

[Oldguardianreader]

Name changed ... Nice ham... Lemon drizzle etc.

Step son back from uni. He's always been confident and opinionated. His views are really to my mind very anti Muslim. E.g. Islam hates everything this country holds dear, majority of paedophiles in organised rings are Muslim, why do 'they' live in this country if they don't want to be like us. It's like going down the pub with the local ukip party.

. I'm an unreconstructed old style guardian reader and find this all quite shocking. So far am biting my tongue, changing the subject and leaving the room to avoid engaging. Aibu to not challenge him in the interests of family harmony?

He's dh's precious first born who can do no wrong. And, when not on his favourite topic is quite charming company.

I find myself surprised at the views of the teens in my family. Then I remember how opinionated I was as a teen.

They do adapt with new input though. My son was pro US style ultra tough prisons. End of debate - he would not be moved. Last month he spent a long time patiently explaining how young people would go in after a minor offence and become brutalised and come out having learned how to be better criminals.

But what I say in the way of debate / arguments has little effect.

I have found telling him about my positive experiences with say Muslim friends at University or the great personal kindness shown to me as a youngster in the US by many black people did put a halt to stop his impersonal critiques of "groups". I didn't do this as a counter to any "debate" but when there was a neutral atmosphere and maybe a news report prompted it.

As a PP said, it really depends on the ethos in your house. However if your SS is 'allowed' to have and voice strong political arguments then I think it's fine for you to do the same especially since you've said your other DS doesn't share SS's views. It doesn't have to be an argument or a challenge. It can just be a gentle reminder every time that there is an opposing pov and that you hold it.

tbh I don't think the approach of 'I'm doing this to prevent him getting his head kicked in when he goes off to the big city to work ' is a valid one. It's almost implying that certain views merit a physical attack. They don't - no matter how disagreeable you find them.

If the poster's stepson is an intelligent and ambitious young man, he'll probably be applying for graduate traineeships in big companies. Or be going in for some kind of professional training. A good many organisations will be screening candidates in terms of their commitment to diversity and equality of opportunity, as well as their ability to get on with a range of different people.

So it's useful for young people to be able to develop an awareness of appropriate respectful behaviour, whatever their political opinions might be.

Though sometimes you do have to step back and let young people find this out for themselves. The hard way.

OP, if you want to challenge him do so. If you think life will be easier if you just ignore him then do that. If I were you I would challenge and let WW3 break out but that's my way. What suits me may not be best for you though.

i adore it when the 5 children have very different views. We love debates in this family. Lucky you to have someone like that. Do you have the skills to argue back eg most Muslims are peaceful? However he is correct that a lot of moral wrongs from sexism to terrorism on this planet link to Islam at the moment. No other group even in north Korea is going round chopping people's heads off. No country but Saudi has no minimum age for child marriage etc. The 10 countries with the death penalty if you give up being a Muslim are all Islamic. It is riven with sexism and discrimination and sooner the planet is all atheist the better.

if my pfb ds 19 (in the military) came home and started spewing out opinions like that id be very worried about who the hell he was hanging round with .
granted hes an adult with his own opinions but im not anti anything and find talk like that very uncomfortable.
i certainly would nt bite my tongue - i didnt bring him to be full of hate and would ask him to keep his opinions to himself- end of
and if he still carried on id put bette midlers- from a distance on full blast to drown him out.

Ignore Simon. He's often quite inflammatory a twat on threads.

When have UKIP said anything about Muslims? he sounds more like a Britain First fan.

UKIP on Islam

MarianneSolong - you make a great point there.

Is he just baiting you?

I used to do the same but the other way round in terms of views.

The cases quoted are very specific and take no account of the various facets of Islam or representative of it, in same way of Catholicism and abusing boys, or the endorsement of slavery through reintrepreting Ham's being cursed black.

you say he went to a public school and is back from uni, is that uni oxbridge? Tbh I was really shocked by just how much oxford fit a lot of the stereotypes, at least among undergrads: if there were muslims, they tended to be foreign students (I'm going back ten years so may have changed), the majority 'view' was very privileged even if people didn't come from that background (and most did). Think, people talking about how 'scary' it was walking past a council estate at night People revelled in their upper class toffishness like they were being ironic going against some leftie norm, but actually there wasn't much of a real challenge, and there was so little opportunity to mix with people from other backgrounds which imo is one of the main joys of uni. I think of it often when I look at the front bench: very intelligent people, taught to argue and think and research, but not to empathise.

Please challenge him. There is plenty of evidence showing that opposition of a minority group makes them band together and self-identify more as that minority - so in a pluralist society, you may feel you identify more with the catholic in work who has the same hobby than the fellow muslim who is very religious when you aren't. This happens even more with each generation. However, if all muslims start being stopped and searched, and your colleague has never experienced that, or thinks you're exaggerating, you will subtly find your allegiances changing.

He's presumably adept at manipulating facts, and coming up with counter arguments, but being fairly calm, subtly pointing out factual statements, and trying to encourage empathy could go a long way at that age.

Islam isn't a race, it's a religion.

How many liberal Guardian readers criticise the Catholic Church?

I am biased but I'd challenge any UKIP views as in my opinion UKIP are totally wrong. Having said that it is not easy to challenge a step child and you need to be sure that you are not going to cause a major family problem if you tell him he is a biased, ignorant uncaring stupid idiot

yabu to confuse 'right wing' with bigotry (is that guardian reading).

yanbu to challenge his views if you don't agree.

How many liberal Guardian readers criticise the Catholic Church?
Loads of them. I do for one. I'm a member of the National Secular Society and think special protections for religion should be dispensed with and that the Church of England should not have a presence in the House of Lords.

There are a lot of Labour politicians who cosy up to unpleasant Islamists (Ken Livingstone) - I criticise them as well.

Also there is a clear distinction between criticising religion and demonising a group of people who happen to share a religion (as well as nations of origin).

Challenge him.

He's going to come unstuck in interview and work situations if he comes out with streams of inaccurate bigotry, so you'd be doing him a favour in the long run.

Challenge with facts and evidence. Ask him to provide evidence for his statements. Make him think.

I am very happy to criticise some of the practices and views promoted in the name of Catholicism ( such as silencing victims of abuse to protect the priesthood) just as I am happy to criticise some of the practices and views promoted in the name of Islam ( such as FGM).

Interestingly, neither of these are found in either religions' Holy Books - quite the opposite. So I don't find anything fundamentally wrong with either religion - it just seems to be misguided zealots who give their faith a bad name.

If he is such a smart cookie, why not tell him to go read the Qur'an? After all, first rule of research is to back to as close to the original source as you can get.

I think within reason it's quite refreshing to hear a different point of view from the toe the line politically correct Guardian following folk.

I could do without that kind of refreshment personally. Islamophobia is racism and it is disgusting (and plain lazy, not smart IMHO). Lots of other views to adopt if you must have a cause.

There's a difference between accepting that you wouldn't like to live under Islamic rule and making the judgement that e.g. because in one country miles away things are bad for women, the Muslim guy who lives next door is a bad person.

So Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith were Muslims?

Islamophobia isnt racism velour, as unpleasant as certain aspects of it are. This is the thing with having discussions. Progress is only made if people stick to facts.

Well, it's not if you see racism as meaning prejudice against race so I get you in that sense, but I think we need to accept that the term has evolved past its literal meaning.