Culture Ask Amy: We told him not to come to the wedding, but we still wanted his money

Dear Amy: Four months before my daughter’s wedding, she told me that her uncle (my brother, “Dave”) would make her feel unsafe if he was a guest. She asked me not to invite him.

My daughter is very politically progressive, as are many of her friends, and although she and Dave have always had a good relationship (I thought), he is a conservative voter and has supported candidates we all abhor.

Dave has always been very nice, so my daughter’s request surprised me.

I wrote Dave a very nice note, telling him that we would not be comfortable with him at the wedding and that he would not be invited.

Dave did not respond and did not attend.

Afterward, I sent him a card and pictures from the wedding, all in an effort to make him feel like he was not being totally left out.

I have not heard from Dave since then. When my siblings found out what I had done they were angry with me.

That is just one problem.

Another problem is that Dave has not sent my daughter and son-in-law a wedding gift.

In the past, Dave has given family members wedding checks in excess of $1,000.

She says she was counting on receiving the same type of gift.

My husband says I should drop it – but I can’t. Dave’s behavior is upsetting and embarrassing to me.

How can I get my brother to recognize and change his petty behavior?

Please don’t tell me that I’m the one who started this by not inviting my brother to the wedding. After all, he’s a grown man, while my daughter is young and just starting out.

– Angry in Philadelphia

Dear Angry: Let’s recap: Your delicate daughter is too frightened to be near a conservative voter to allow her uncle “Dave” to attend her wedding.

She then asks you to do her dirty work for her, and (of course) you do!

Fine – so far, we have only a bride’s prerogative to create her own guest list, and her mother’s choice to protect her from any consequences, which is your prerogative.

You then rub the excluded guest’s nose in this wedding by sending him photos of the event to which he has pointedly not been invited.

But it’s your second “problem” which I believe will enter the Bridezilla Hall of Infamy.

In short: Brides who are too afraid of family members to invite them to a family wedding don’t then get the pleasure of receiving their money.

You seem almost as afraid of your daughter as she is of your brother, but I hope you’ll find a way to courageously tell her that the Bank of Uncle Dave is closed, at least to your branch of the family.

So far, your silent brother is the only family member who is behaving appropriately. He’s steering clear, which is exactly what you have asked him to do.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/advi...0230629-tdz3lad4a5dthgi5d35v4lsgzq-story.html (Archive)

 

[White Devil]

It's real, I'm Dave.

No. You're Ron.

 

[Cool Dog Returns]

No fucking way this isnt fake ragebait, its too perfect, too on the nose, and yet I've seen worse IRL

How can I get my brother to recognize and change his petty behavior?

Kill yourself, it will totally work trust me

while my daughter is young and just starting out.

If this daughter exists I hope she gets raped by a pack of detroit's finest do I have to explain it?

 

[Billy Bob Dick]

detroit's finest

I assume you mean "niggers" not "cops"

 

[Begemot]

It's made up, you porch monkey. All these columns are.

I know you still have hope in n your heart but I think Australians (like us) are only seeing the U.S from a distance, This type of bullshit is exceedingly common. there.

There is no Australian equivalent to a blue/red state or the political polarisation that the U.S has, I suspect compulsory voting in our system enforces a type of centrism just due to the added normies that are not voting in the U.S electoral system. Even if this is fake it's not very far off and the readers would recognise this type of archetype from their own familial interactions.

 

[WebLurker]

When Begemot stops gimick-posting you know shit is bad.


Watching the US over the past few years - from the safety of the other side of the planet - I could definitely see this story being real. What's actually surprising to me is that the 'Dear Amy' response was more "you're a cunt" and less "you're totz right! Your Evil Red-Menace of a brother should be giving your daughter three times the usual amount for his awful crimes of voting for OrangeManBAD!"

Genuinely surprised given that Reddit would be calling for Uncle Dave to be beaten to an inch of his life until he agreed to empty out his bank account to various left-leaning "charities"

 

[Vargerd]

I assume you mean "niggers" not "cops"

no reason you can't double those up in detroit

 

[6 Years Ago]

she told me that her uncle (my brother, “Dave”) would make her feel unsafe if he was a guest

Aaaaaand that's how you know it's a cult. I guarantee you the "groom" is a pooner and if I wasn't so lazy I'd go out looking to post proof of it.

 

[Begemot]

When Begemot stops gimick-posting you know shit is bad.


Watching the US over the past few years - from the safety of the other side of the planet - I could definitely see this story being real. What's actually surprising to me is that the 'Dear Amy' response was more "you're a cunt" and less "you're totz right! Your Evil Red-Menace of a brother should be giving your daughter three times the usual amount for his awful crimes of voting for OrangeManBAD!"

Genuinely surprised given that Reddit would be calling for Uncle Dave to be beaten to an inch of his life until he agreed to empty out his bank account to various left-leaning "charities"

I've seen Australians of both stripes import this American....polarising disease.

Australian right-wing pundits on sky news will act like there is the same polarised audience or 'base' that exists in the U.S. I think @heathercho is in the same vibe, as much as I want da hoe to be muh lover.... No society can exist like this long-term, as good as it feels to declaim the other.

The only reason the last New South Wales election wasn't worse for the coalition was because Matt Kean's environmental measures held off a teal equivalent.

 

[WebLurker]

I've seen Australians of both stripes import this American....polarising disease.

Australian right-wing pundits on sky news will act like there is the same polarised audience or 'base' that exists in the U.S. I think @heathercho is in the same vibe, as much as I want da hoe to be muh lover.... No society can exist like this long-term, as good as it feels to declaim the other.

The only reason the last New South Wales election wasn't worse for the coalition was because Matt Kean's environmental measures held off a teal equivalent.

Yeah, I've never understood mindless devotion to a political party: they're politicians ffs! None of them give a fuck about Australia or Australians, they only can about the corporations that own them!

I've always flip-flopped parties and voted for policies and then hoped like hell the two-faced cunts would actually make good on their promises for once.

 

[Begemot]

Yeah, I've never understood mindless devotion to a political party: they're politicians ffs! None of them give a fuck about Australia or Australians, they only can about the corporations that own them!

I've always flip-flopped parties and voted for policies and then hoped like hell the two-faced cunts would actually make good on their promises for once.

Yeah, likewise. That's another pernicious thing the U.S has, if I understand the process correctly they have you register as a member of a poltical party to vote, which seems just bizarre to me. You can't just be a floating voter in the same way.

Other Australian measures like ranked voting would also help even out the binary of the two purported political parties.

 

[AnOminous]

Yeah, likewise. That's another pernicious thing the U.S has, if I understand the process correctly they have you register as a member of a poltical party to vote, which seems just bizarre to me. You can't just be a floating voter in the same way.

No, and it's different by state. You only have to register as a member of a party to vote in that party's primary, not the general election, and not in most states. Some states have open primaries and you don't have to register, or can even be registered with the other party and just pick your party on election day. And some states allow you to vote in the primary of any party, choosing it on election day, but only if you are not affiliated with any other party (semi-closed).

And some states do even weirder things, like California and Washington's "top-two" primaries where all the candidates are listed on the ballot, can state a party preference, but then the top two, of whatever party, or even the same party, go on to the general election.

This is partly a matter of state law and partly a matter of political parties getting to run their own internal affairs to some extent.

 

[Begemot]

No, and it's different by state. You only have to register as a member of a party to vote in that party's primary, not the general election, and not in most states. Some states have open primaries and you don't have to register, or can even be registered with the other party and just pick your party on election day. And some states allow you to vote in the primary of any party, choosing it on election day, but only if you are not affiliated with any other party (semi-closed).

And some states do even weirder things, like California and Washington's "top-two" primaries where all the candidates are listed on the ballot, can state a party preference, but then the top two, of whatever party, or even the same party, go on to the general election.

This is partly a matter of state law and partly a matter of political parties getting to run their own internal affairs to some extent.

Ah, okay. Sorry, I should have researched further frankly.

Also, is it just me but is it always White 'Liberal' women in these stories who can't or won't interact with these evil 'Fascists'.?

 

[whogoesthere]

Are people aware these are fake right? I had one published, it was all the rage to do in the 90s for students. It's not the great trick we thought it was, though, as the "real" ones are often farted out by some junior staff member for the Agony Aunt to respond to. It's why they are oddly good at getting questions related to current hot topics, almost like it's just another form of yellow journo scumming.

 

[SIMIΔN]

I've seen Australians of both stripes import this American....polarising disease.

This, around the time of Trump's election, the Libs butchered weekend penalty rates. I attended the process against it and it was pretty small.
Weeks later, there was a massive anti-Trump protest. A protest against a foreign land electing its arguably most progressive politician yet got 10X the people as a protest against a slashing of the incomes of the working poor in Sydney.

Too many young libleft Aussies have a cargo cult like obsession with America.
Melbourne even had a 50K people George Floyd protest leading to the collapse of Melbourne's covid tracking and months of lockdown.
They even protest things that don't affect them. When the AMERICAN supreme court de-harmonised abortion law, thousands of idiots protested around Australia in 'solidarity'. Do they even know Australia's abortion laws?

As for heathercho, I suspect they are as much an Australian as I'm a chimpanzee astronaut. Maybe an anti-doxing cover. Anyway, she's a thought provoking poster so it doesn't matter.

Other Australian measures like ranked voting would also help even out the binary of the two purported political parties.

This, FPTP traps people between two bad options.

 

[White Devil]

This, around the time of Trump's election, the Libs butchered weekend penalty rates. I attended the process against it and it was pretty small.
Weeks later, there was a massive anti-Trump protest. A protest against a foreign land electing its arguably most progressive politician yet got 10X the people as a protest against a slashing of the incomes of the working poor in Sydney.

Too many young libleft Aussies have a cargo cult like obsession with America.
Melbourne even had a 50K people George Floyd protest leading to the collapse of Melbourne's covid tracking and months of lockdown.
They even protest things that don't affect them. When the AMERICAN supreme court de-harmonised abortion law, thousands of idiots protested around Australia in 'solidarity'. Do they even know Australia's abortion laws?

I don't understand why foreigners are so obsessed with our culture and politics. That meme that we (most of us anyway) really don't think about you at all is real. I don't give a single solitary fuck about what goes on in Australia or France, Britain, etc. Keep that Eurocentric shit in your backyard.

With Europeans I imagine it's because they're used to being up in each others business, but Australians? Come the fuck on.

 

[oh no its pipkun]

probably, but this is clown world and the farm knows how retarded people can be...

I've been to weddings for people who have done something similar. people get retarded over weddings.

 

[WebLurker]

I don't understand why foreigners are so obsessed with our culture and politics. That meme that we (most of us anyway) really don't think about you at all is real. I don't give a single solitary fuck about what goes on in Australia or France, Britain, etc. Keep that Eurocentric shit in your backyard.

With Europeans I imagine it's because they're used to being up in each others business, but Australians? Come the fuck on.

I think with Australia it's two-fold: firstly, our media is saturated with American media - be it TV, movies, music or online social media (reddit especially) - and it's corrupted our culture to the point that most young Australians behave more like the peers they see in US media than those few Aussie media-faces on our TV and radio (we don't have any movie industry worth mentioning). To the protesting generation, US social politics does involve them because they're more American in mentaliy and culture than they are Australian.

Secondly, at some point in the 60s there was a strange political divorce between the Aus government and the British one. Suddenly our loyalties as a country turned from "Mother England" and instead devoted us - specifically militarily - with "Big Brother USA"; with the Primeminister Harold Holt declaring “All the way with LBJ”

Our country would then send out weapons and soldiers in any and every military action the US engaged in - when prior our military was used exclusively as Britain's meat-shields and cannon-fodder. Now we were the USA's

So to Boomers, X-geners and Milins, American politics are important because whenever the US goes to war, Australian soldiers are expected to die in those wars. Regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with us or our country's best interests.

Tl;dr: the spineless, two-faced shitcunts who make up the Aussie government sold Australia - body and soul - to the US decades ago and now whenever the US goes to war Aussie soldiers are sent to die. So we take an interest in US politics because it's very much our skin in the game and our arses on the line

 

[Dysnomia]

Please don’t tell me that I’m the one who started this by not inviting my brother to the wedding. After all, he’s a grown man, while my daughter is young and just starting out.

This is the part that teslls you it's fake. Troll goes overboard. Possibly on purpose just to see if the column will bite. It did.

So fake. So gay. But the columnist is retarded for not catching it.

 

[Dysnomia]

Please don’t tell me that I’m the one who started this by not inviting my brother to the wedding. After all, he’s a grown man, while my daughter is young and just starting out.

This is the part that tells you it's fake. Troll goes overboard. Possibly on purpose just to see if the column will bite. It did.

So fake. So gay. But the columnist is retarded for not catching it.

 

[Nick Gars]

Another problem is that Dave has not sent my daughter and son-in-law a wedding gift.

In the past, Dave has given family members wedding checks in excess of $1,000.

She says she was counting on receiving the same type of gift.

You tell him to stay the fuck of your wedding because he has the gall, the fucking temerity to have opinions contrary to your own, and you  still expect him to fork over $1000+ for free? Unironically get fucked to death by niggers, you fucking inhumanly entitled whore.