Dear Maureen,
Help! Your expertise could prove invaluable in maintaining civility at our Easter dinner table. My brother is taking his two high school age children to hear Ann Coulter in New York in March. I know I have no chance of reforming my brother’s decidedly insular perspective as a New Hampshire Libertarian, but I hold out some hope that I can offer his progeny a glimpse of an alternative perspective.
I am consistently unable to calmly counter my brother’s high volume, articulate, right wing debating points. I have learned to steer the conversation to safer territory like kids playing sports, oh oops, just ran into the special needs funding debate, in an attempt to avoid all-out conflict with the salad tongs. Along with salad tongs, I come equipped with logic, an understanding of how I need to debate with him and a supportive sister who can keep the emotional distress at bay. But I am decidedly lacking in facts to counter the points he will come with having just heard a stream of vitriol from Ann Coulter.
No doubt the Easter conversation will quickly skip from the benefits of being a locavore to the financial crisis, circling closer and closer to the drain of disastrous dinner table debate. I do not intend to be religiously exclusive in neglecting to mention how you could calm the hunt for the Afikomen, but in my experience with my in-laws we haven’t had divisive debates over the tax system after closing our Haggadahs.
Now I don’t want to paint my brother as an ogre. He is intelligent, can be counted on in a crisis and is an outstanding parent other than providing a limited political perspective to his offspring. So I want to work through this obstacle in our relationship, not to change his mind, but to give him pause and let in a chink of light that one of his children may see as they head out to change the world.
If you could write an opinion piece in the New York Times that counters each of the points Ann Coulter makes in her current East coast city tour, you would provide those of us with strong convictions and a ready sparring partner the facts we require to watch our brothers or mothers or uncles conclude their Easter dinner with a slice of humble pie.
Sincerely,
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