Fire and Gasoline OR Facebook and Politics

This is the first election that I have lived through on Facebook and I’m ready to run for cover. My newsfeed is so full of political postings and opinions that all the fact checkers would have to work six hundred hours a week just to sort the mess out. I’ve been foolish enough to be sucked into the drama, and then I declared my Facebook page a political free zone. I joined Facebook to keep up with people, more family than anything else, but I never saw this mess coming.

Here’s the deal, freedom of speech is a right afforded to all of us, but for goodness sake, does it have to be so hateful? Both sides are absolutely full of it, and I’m almost ashamed for the behavior of some individuals who post what they post. The name calling, the accusations that someone is an idiot or worse for what they believe is NOT a debate. It’s insulting and belittling. Sure, some are funny. The best news feed I read had a rant running a mile long on both sides when someone popped up and posted “Let’s talk about religion!”

My Daddy used to tell me “You should never talk religion and politics,” and I now understand what he meant by that. You can’t bludgeon someone over and over with the same hate speech and expect them to come over to your way of viewing things. They may be brain damaged after the fact, but they will forever see you in a different light. The other thing I’ve noticed is people forget who they have on their friend’s lists. Some have expressed hateful views about Catholics, Mexicans, Jews, and Muslims on their pages, and then they wonder why they get dropped as friends. Let’s face it folks, there is a time and a place for political pontification, but I doubt it’s for Facebook. It can’t be a debate with no give and take. It’s not an opinion when you express hate over one group or another, and when you disrespect one, you disrespect all.

I respect everyone’s right to pick whatever political party they wish and to vote in that direction. I do not however, feel respect when people belittle others for not sharing the same political views that they have. You can’t call someone a right wing religious zealot nut or a left wing commie pig and expect to have an intelligent debate.  Anyway, that’s my political rant for the day….unless you want to talk about religion.

Bless Their Pointy Little Heads, Someone Has To

Tell me that I’ve stepped back in time and this is the reason I’m so confused by the maddening mess of minutia reported in the media. This week yet another slice of news came in via a Bloomberg report that stated, “six jobs with the largest gender gap in pay and at least 10,000 men and 10,000 women were in the Wall Street-heavy financial sector.” Really? Wall Street? This vast place of making or breaking the financial back of America (where women make most of the purchases), can’t come to equal terms where salary is concerned? SHAAAZAM! All of this and glass ceilings too, why we must be back in the Eighties!

Speaking of blasts from the past, Rush, I’ve-been-married-four-times-so-you-know-I’m-an-expert-on-women, Limbaugh has pulled yet another low blow, twisting facts (Really Rush, if you’re going to call yourself an expert, it’s the insurance companies that would have to pay for birth control pills, not our tax dollars, and you don’t take a birth control pill every time you have sex, just saying!), and calling Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute. People are enraged, as they should be, but not nearly enough. When asked what he thought of what Rush said, Romney stated he would have used “different language.”  Say what?

Not once did any of the major bigwig, grand poobah, yuckleheads currently running to be the Republican candidate for President think to say, “Dang Rush, but ain’t you a big ole NEEE-ANDER-THAL!” A young lady was speaking on behalf of a friend to make employers have comprehensive health insurance that covers birth control pills. Sandra Fluke only wanted to tell her friend’s story, but because she dared to speak out on such a controversial subject (What year is this again?), she gets labeled a slut. I swear, if Rush so much as eluded that about my daughter, he’d have a whole heap of Southern Mama whoop ass on his hands.

I guess Romney would have called her loose, misguided or something else. I guess those would be oh so much softer words. Gee, but I hope his daughters, if he has any, or Santorum’s, the good ole Catholic family man (I am a Southern Catholic, and I can tell ya, ya don’t get more confused or guilt ridden than that), never have daughters with open minds who want to control their own bodies. In the meantime, I shake my head at those men who believe they stand tall and yet refuse to defend the honor of a lady, no matter what her opinions are. Shame on them and heaven help their daughters.