
More than likely, my social media habits are going to change pretty drastically by about November 10th of this year. Even if I actually win this race, whereby I will absolutely keep a campaign page and correspond with constituents as much as possible, I have pretty much already decided that that will be the ONLY time I spend on social media in the future. It has quite simply become a gigantic waste of my time and a major drain on my mental well-being.
I have fun sometimes on social media, like one time this week when somebody decided to bash the cartoon Caillou, and if you’ve ever had time stripped away from you that you will never get back and actually watched that objectively AWFUL show, you know why people were bashing it. Commenting on that was fun, because it was the only time that cartoon has ever not made me want to throw a blender at the TV.
But otherwise, social media is truly a wasteland of putrid shit. And the reason it is so putrid is not because of politics, but because of PEOPLE who think so highly of their side of politics that decent, rational, respectful disagreement is no longer an option. It’s been replaced by propaganda, gaslighting, bullying, generalizations, and outright lies that could literally be proven to be lies in less than two minutes.
And people are perfectly fine with this new way of life!?!? Seriously? Forgive me, but WTF!?!?!
Do you know how much less effort it takes for two sets of people to forgo the years of trash-talk, misinformation, propaganda, lies, and hatred and just sit down and say, “Okay, so you think abortion should be legal but I don’t. Hey, I have a great idea, let’s see if we can find some common ground to stand on because that’s fair to both of us.”
Or with taxes. All we hear is one side talking about lower taxes and them bashing the other side for wanting higher taxes and then each of them makes up crap about the other side to make their tax plan sound like even worse crap and I’m over here thinking, “Can a bunch of smart grown people really not sit down and figure out how to spend an amount equal to or less than the amount we bring in?”
That’s all it is, you know? Taxes pay our country’s bills, and we are running MASSIVE, trillion dollar credit card bills every year. Hell, this year we even decided to print money out of thin air. The result of that won’t be felt immediately – and it was necessary – but it will either lessen the value of the dollar in the long run, or inflation will spike to make up for it. Either way, guess who pays for it in the long run, along with the 20% we’re paying annually in interest on our debt? TAXPAYERS!!
This is just not hard stuff to figure out. Everybody come together and sit at a gigantic table, tell the lobbyists to go sit on a super glue spill in Wyoming for a year or two, and together figure out how to make tax revenue equal expenditures by creating a fair tax plan for ALL income brackets and businesses. This is far too simple to be real, but how exactly am I wrong here? There isn’t a single soul that can get everything they want politically, so if you think compromise isn’t necessary, forgive me but you’re wrong.
What disappoints me most of all in this new wave of gutter politics from every single stakeholder – and the reason I won’t spend much time on social media after November – is that I’d honestly rather not know that people are so ignorant that they think it’s a good idea to share a post I can prove to be incorrect or dangerously generalized in less than two minutes. I’d also rather not know that people are so closed-minded that they can’t see how an issue might look from the other side.
Or the fact that every study known to man has pretty much already been completed, so if I want to look up the percentage of the population that thinks religion and politics should mix, I can look that up. And when I do, if I find that only thirty percent of the country agrees with that, I either need to get a little realistic and assume that this new knowledge probably means seventy percent DON’T think religion and politics should mix and maybe they have a good reason for feeling that way, or I need to accept that I’m going to alienate a whole bunch of people on my crusade to mix politics and religion. I’d honestly rather not know that people I know can’t figure this stuff out on their own.
And all of this leads to the parentheses up there in the title – this desire of people to hate the other party over issues that could be resolved in seven minutes tops if people got the partisan crap out of the way. There is a pandemic of citizen robots in this country right now. If ANY leader in your party says something (especially the supreme leader,) it is immediately party gospel. It’s as if there is a bible that each party must obey, and as soon as a new entry is added (often daily,) it is worshiped by the robots immediately and defended as if Jesus himself spoke these immortal words. If it is not defended with such relentlessness – even if the defense goes against their moral fabric – then their party could look weak, and that is simply unacceptable.
And what that’s doing to social media is disgusting. Perhaps it’s expected, too, but it’s also pretty off-putting. A bunch of angry, closed-minded people so hell bent on winning politically that they could care less if people they know and like begin to dislike them. And my guess is that most of them don’t realize that a lot of their “friends” dislike them because they stubbornly think that everybody on their “friends list” is supposed to think exactly like them.
And FYI, I’m well aware that dislike and hate are strong words, and in many cases, I’m referring to the fact that you dislike a person’s views, not necessarily the person, but I can almost guarantee that you have somebody on your friends list that is so hateful with what they post that your anger produces a strong dislike for that person.
But let’s just back this train up for a moment. Just like the people you disagree with, you have foundational beliefs that are at the core of who you are. It is legal for you to have those beliefs. It is actually encouraged that you stand up for something and have strong beliefs. But when did it become part of the American way to bash people for having beliefs that differ from yours? Maybe I’m not old enough to have seen the Civil War or prohibition or women’s suffrage or the Civil Rights Movement or any other major turning point in this country, but when I view those major events, they were caused by people who were unwilling to allow people to live with their own core foundational beliefs. Or in some cases, it was outright hatred or discrimination of people or cultures that differed from the mainstream.
Hmmmm. Sounds familiar.
Think about us right now. Think about all the things you might consider to be a core foundational belief. A lot of my friends have a core foundational belief in God and Jesus. We have become a society where many of those people are VERY critical of people who don’t share that same core foundational belief. Why is that? Are they afraid that these people are going to somehow take away their own beliefs? Are they angry because the politics of fear has made them believe that prayer was actually removed from schools?
(It wasn’t, by the way. Any student in the country can drop to their knees anywhere in any school and pray. They can’t – or shouldn’t – get in trouble for that. I can’t predict what other kids might do or say, but I can’t predict what they might do if a child wears a Caillou t-shirt either.)
The point in the above example is that the Constitution gives us the freedom to practice OUR religion until the day that document is burned and America is no more. I don’t know about you, but I will fight for that right until the day I die, no matter how religious I may or may not be. But I am damn sure not going to bash or belittle another person that doesn’t share my same beliefs. His beliefs are his business, not mine. But many of you do that on Facebook, even if you don’t realize you’re doing it. And it’s getting beyond ugly.
If you’re honest with yourself, you can probably come up with at least a dozen core foundational beliefs. You might have the belief that every single able-bodied adult should work until retirement and pay their fair share of taxes. You might instead have the belief that richer people should pay more taxes simply because they’re rich and don’t need all that money.
You might have the belief that a heartbeat signifies life. You instead might have the belief that a fetus is just a clump of cells. You might believe marriage should just be between a man and a woman. You might instead believe that love is love and it is not the government’s job to legislate it.
You might even believe less common stuff like assisted suicide is perfectly acceptable for someone who is suffering and able to make the decision to end their own life. Or that misdemeanor drug offenses should equate to mandatory expulsion from government welfare programs. Or that two hundred years is probably long enough to realize that the wealth divide between blacks and whites might need a little boost. Or that people who exercise seven days a week and eat well should pay less in health insurance.
These are core beliefs that ALL of us have and NONE of us can be proven wrong to such an extent that we’re changing. And you, dear Facebook division warrior, have dozens if not hundreds of Facebook friends who differ from you in ways you probably don’t even know about.
That means that when you put up political propaganda that is so generalized I could defeat it with seventy-four “what-if” scenarios in twelve minutes, or it’s so false I could prove it incorrect with internet search capabilities that most children can perform, there is a segment of your friends list that grows to hate your closed-mindedness or inability to determine fact from fiction.
You and the twenty-five people that always agree with you – and tell you so with declarations such as “Amen,” “preach,” or “say it louder for the people in the back” – are practicing nothing but a form of an echo chamber whereby you don’t actually want disagreement, you want to make sure you’re “right.” But in many, many cases, your “right” is somebody else’s wrong, and it has nothing to do with facts or truth.
It has to do with core foundational beliefs we’ve been developing since birth. Yours aren’t wrong, mine aren’t wrong, and the foundational beliefs of the transgender Icelandic nomad that lives in the community park bathroom aren’t wrong.
People are big into saying, “That’s not what we do in America” or “That’s un-American” or whatever trash they spew these days that only means “If you differ from me and MY vision of America, you’re wrong,” but the only thing that is TRULY American by its very existence is the Constitution, and I’ll be damned if it says anything in there about your vision of America being the only vision allowed in its daily operations.
But it says nobody can take your vision away either. You’re free to have it. But to be truly free, you also have to learn to let other people have theirs, too. Learn to coexist, on Facebook and in life. What’s happening now in this country (and especially on social media) is “un-American” in my view. I can’t force anybody to share that view, but I do know it’s a far more advanced view than thinking my way is the only way.
Absolutely Beautiful!
Most of the problems that we see on social media today, and now spilling out into the public sphere, can be attributed to people who can no longer use the faculty of reason as a way to begin, or advance any discussion. “Memes” and “ad hominem” attacks, therefore becomes the short order of the day, and acts as an inferior and dangerous substitute for the use of reason. Americans would not even have a Constitution at all, had it not been for the great thinkers of the 18th Century Enlightenment – a cultural period in which reason was held in the highest esteem in order to hammer out our many disagreements and arrive at a workable solution.
Thank you for this sincere and well-thought out essay. As a fellow unaffiliated voter, whose beliefs cannot be constrained by tribal partisanship, it is often exasperating to see our free democratic republic degrade into irrationality and abuse, which must be countered on all fronts. Wishing you the best of luck, now and in all of your future endeavors.
You NEVER disappoint me with the way your mind works inconjunction with your heart. I’ve learned this same lesson over the years and just decided to be kind and loving instead of forcing my beliefs on someone else.
Well done sugar…