politics, turn on or off?

Generally but not always I find it a bit of a turn on to have an intelligent conversation on philosophy, or politics. Sadly 99% of people in general can not hold an intelligent conversation on politics and remaining respectful is an issue as well. I remember seeing some statistics where among US female populations there is less interest in politics than the male population. ( That was years ago. ) That statistic makes me a sad panda because I do enjoy discussing politics with people. When I do find someone that wants to talk about politics they often are disrespectful or ignorant of real facts and often know only political talking points. ( Talking points that you can not back up annoy me to no end. ) For example I will begin talking about economics and they will generally stick to one liners and things you hear off mainstream media that are so idiotic that I want to bang my head off an iron table every time I hear something like that. I kind of feel like Tom Woods in this video. Many other people are the zombie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrcM5exDxcc&feature=youtube_gdata_player In short either have no interest in politics or please know what you speak of.

Definitely a turn on. A person's politics and philosophy show their intelligence and how attune they are to the world around them. Whenever I talked about politics with my coworkers/boss, though, it left much to be desired. The most intelligent conversation I had in two years there was trying to make a coworker realize that complaining about how it's hard to find a job, how lazy people are, and how union employees hate him for being non-union while simultaneously wanting the minimum wage raised, government healthcare, and more regulation. Not all of those things are contradictory, but it took me an hour to explain to him that some of those things are detrimental to each other. I'll talk with anyone and listen to their position, reasons, and why they disagree with the opposition even if I completely disagree with them personally. They can attack what I believe as long as they do it in a logical format. What I can't stand is when people have such "solid" reasons like "Obama/Romney is the Anti-Christ" and such. So my question, Lagannfan, is do you like local/national/global politics and/or political theory? There's different focuses of politics. Like my brother is really into politics and national political theory, but once I get into global political theory, he loses interest.

I like Local, national, and Global. I see it as one in the same if you view it from a certain type of economic standpoint. Something that happens in South Africa could cut supply for building pencils in Mexico which could cause a loss of jobs or change in the supply chain which would also change everything else that involves making a pencil. ( people seriously don't understand the complexity that is a pencil. You have to gather material from multiple counties if not multiple land masses just to make a single pencil. Also so many skills are required to make just one pencil. Every one of those skills and materials come from a different place more than likely. ) I am a little more ignorant on global issues than national and local I must admit. My focus has been on local and national for the past couple years. I am a big fan of political theory as it allows you to have a chance of understanding the world, rather than listening to mainstream media pundits. I have a friend I run into a couple times each year who believes in a different philosophy than myself but we get into political theory discussions when we meet and have come to an understanding that it is not that one of us is "right or wrong" even if that is the case potentially, it is that we have the same concerns but our experience has brought us to a different conclusion of how to address those concerns. ( Though on civil rights me and him are pretty much 99% in agreement, the other 1% is property rights under our interpretation of the constitution. ) I do know what you mean about leaving much to be desired, but luckily for me i have met a few people that I can have a full political discussion with. Sadly lots of them have given up on voting. XD

I pay attention to local politics more than anything, even if I absolutely can't stand the subject. I don't want to have much to say, nor do I wish to talk at length about it, since it's all a sordid mess of corruption and failed attempts at purging the nest of vipers... from what I've seen and researched. Los Angeles is a filthy place, and this has ruined politics for me.

Politics is one of those subjects that people tend to be overly defensive about. Religion and politics are two things I really dislike talking to a potential partner because somtimes can just get so heated that df ives a wedge between you befor you even get started. Just in my experience better to get to those topics later. Jusr my 2 cents

Conversations about politics can get pretty heated up, but I think it's a good sign if someone can talk in-depth about politics. I personally get more interested in a person who can keep an intelligent conversation going.. Unless they start bashing right away at gay people and gay rights. D: