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.