Do you have any right wing, or non-leftist friends?

[Skyhilist]

Pretty simple question. Discuss.

For the purposes of the thread lets define "non-leftist" as anything right wing of a liberal, because I think most of us have liberal friends partially because there are so few socialists out there in the places where many of us live.

EDIT: Exclude apolitical friends because you can't really place them within the right vs left spectrum.

[d3crypt]

Friends with a fascist

[Remus Bleys]

I have one leftist friend. Hell, I only know one other leftist really, and that was after hours of persuasion.
Everyone else is social-democrat at best, most are either conservative or liberal.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Friends with a few somewhat conservative people. It is the south after all. Politics isn't something I generally talk about outside of RevLeft unless someone else brings it up, and even it's rare.

[Sentinel]

When I was younger, I did have plenty. Childhood friends aren't chosen, nor were my own views developed, despite influenced by leftism, at that point. Some more apolitical than right wing ones are still with me today, though.

But as a gradual, and I'd say natural, process most 'OI' people have went separate ways with me and been replaced by more left wing ones. These days many of the people I 'hang with' on my rare free time are also comrades, members of the same organisation.

There are some people at my work, who I would consider friends on some level that are economically right wing/neo-liberal, but I would hardly spend time off with them. I do however draw the line at social reactionaries - racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes etc.

I feel there is simply no rational reason for me to deal with such peoples bullshit on what little free time I have, combating their ideas in my role as an activist is enough.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'm friends with a host of right-wing populists and libertarians. I live in Alaska, right-wing populism/libertarianism is pretty big up here. Not friends with any real, heavy-weight right-wing ideologues, though. Those people turn me off in a big way. (Not that that sort of individual would even want to hang out with me, anyway...)

[Sentinel]

I should add, perhaps, that if I too lived in an area with less leftists then probably that would be reflected in my circle of friends. I'm not ready to become a hermit at this age, after all.

But likely I'd still aim at keeping to socially progressive people with 'merely' differing economical views.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I was friends with someone who supported racial segregation. Friendship didn't last long after I found that out.

[Dagoth Ur]

I'm friends with anyone who is fun to be friends with. It's more frequent that reactionary friends abandon me than I abandon them. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.

[BIXX]

I have two real friends that I consider friends (it takes a lot for me to consider someone a friend).

However, I am very close to them. One of them is slowly (but surely) becoming an anarchist (as I am beginning to believe I exude some kind of "anarchist hormone" or something that turns people into anarchists). The other is a liberal, but she is more concerned with living her life than politics, so she is almost apolitical.

[Quail]

Some of my friends are people who I met through politics, who are of course leftists. Other people I hang out with I met through sport so I guess they have a range of political views. Sometimes they make dodgy comments and there's a kind of macho atmosphere and I call them out on it, but I don't think they actually mean to be sexist/homophobic, more they just don't realise they're doing it, if that makes sense. Most of my old school friends are liberals, although one is an anarchist. One guy used to come out with some real racist shit but he seems to have done a u-turn about all that which is really nice to see.

[Comrade Jacob]

Being friends with a Thatcherite is very awkward, just don't talk about politics around him, he can get really annoying.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

most of my friends are either on the left, 'liberal' types (socially, generally not fussed about economics, dislike tories etc) or very apolitical. i never tend to get on with right wing people, they're normally so square.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There really is no such thing as apolitical, that's a term used by people who think themselves 'in-the-know' to disparage other who aren't as interested in career politics and to encourage apathy.

Everyone has a view.

[Igor]

basically all of my friends are

mostly either very apathetic or social democrat types. some have relatively conservative and right-liberal views but i generally just don't discuss politics with them

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

There really is no such thing as apolitical, that's a term used by people who think themselves 'in-the-know' to disparage other who aren't as interested in career politics and to encourage apathy.

Everyone has a view.

well their view is that they 'don't care' about politics, because they are disillusioned with it, understandably. this may be a 'view', but the people i know who would call themselves apolitical genuinely don't want anything to do with politics, nor do they care about the outcome of political situations in a formal sense. these are quite privileged people, perhaps it would be different if they were more immediately affected by the social, political and economic environments that exist around them.

'ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and forever' as trotsky said - the people i know who class themselves as apolitical haven't been under fire, so they see no reason to 'care' about politics or spout views other than that they couldn't give a shit either way (until it goes tits up for them, i'd imagine).

as it stands, these people are apolitical and this isn't just in relation to careerists. this also relates to leftist groups like the swp who many see as a laughing stock- they are the main group at my university, perhaps many of them are careerists but they certainly don't want to encourage apathy. however, they do encourage it due to their ineptitude and the fact that most of their target demographic at the university aren't in situations where political activism seems an immediate necessity. some people are genuinely apolitical.

[Arlekino]

I don't have friends and I am not joking.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Fuck no. I'm currently purging my liberal friends as well. The less idiotic "friends" you have, the less stressful life will be...

[ВАЛТЕР]

I have some acquaintances that I have to tolerate (say hi when I see them and shit), but no right wing friends. They are bad people and they should feel bad.

[sixdollarchampagne]

When I was in the Navy, there was a guy in our unit who was an Objectivist; I think that's the right term – he thought that Ayn Rand was cool. He was funny, awfully smart and good-natured; I remember he used to talk about "diabetical materialism," which cracked me up. I liked him a lot. It's been more than three and a half decades since I knew Johnny, and I still remember him. So, yeah, from where I sit, there's nothing wrong with being friends with a reactionary, and writing about Johnny reminds me of a student at the university where I used to work, who was also an Objectivist; on a face to face level, she was a lovely person. Who knows, maybe one can have some influence on a friend like that, over time. I would much rather be friends with an honest right-winger, than with a syrupy trust-fund liberal Democrat: in my view, it's the Democrats who are the big brake on social progress in this country, not the relatively few Objectivists. At least the Objectivists, and right-wingers in general, sail under their own true colors.