Can't cure stupid

Lately the S.O. has been indulging in an exercise in frustration in trying to communicate with some right-wing relatives. He spends way too much time exchanging comments on Facebook while muttering about how fucking stupid some people are. This behavior tells me it's definitely time for us to hit the road back to Michigan -- he needs to be using that energy to finish filling the woodshed before the snow gets to be asshole deep instead of wasting it in cyberspace. He could type until his fingers bled and it wouldn't change anyone's mind. The relatives in question are the classic example of what I (elitist left-wing Commie that I am) tend to think of as the brainwashed proletariat -- they fret a lot about creeping socialism and President Obama being a Marxist without having a clue as to what socialism or Marxism actually are.* They just know that they've been told that socialism is evil so it's become a convenient label to slap on to anything and everything they've been told to oppose.

I don't know why the S.O. bothers. I figured out quite awhile ago that there are some people who like to talk but are incapable of listening, so it's pointless to try to engage in a dialogue. It's especially pointless when you're dealing with people who have trouble understanding some fairly basic concepts, like the difference between socialism and fascism, or who rant about the evils of big government while working for a corporation that depends 100% on government funding. When people are so oblivious or willfully ignorant that they don't get it that shrinking government would result in their own unemployment or eliminate their benefits arguing with them is a waste of time and energy. All you can do is walk away while being quietly grateful that the people in question are fairly distant relatives, not close ones, and that they don't live next door.

[*As an actual Marxist who has known genuine, ideologically committed Socialists and Communists, it always annoys the crap out of me to see the labels applied to corporatist politicians like Barack Obama who 50 years ago would have been Eisenhower Republicans.]