Reading past blogs and "On This Day" posts and seeing my warning bells clanging about the disappearing middle ground and the divisiness in the country has been really depressing me lately.
I could see it happening. I kept talking about it. And it kept happening. And it's worse now than it was when I first started talking about it. And I'm sure I was talking about it long before I was ever on Facebook. Back when I thought it was bad.
Some of the posts reminded me of the joke where I wish I was as fat now and I was the first time I thought I was fat.
I wish we were divided as much now as we were the first time I thought we were divided.
Because it's crazy.
There was a post in my "on this day" where I talked about Sarah Palin and the hypocrisy of the abstinence only lecture tour when her kids kept having babies out of wedlock. A comment on that (and this was YEARS ago) was that someone liked her just because of how mad she made "the left." I said that was a horrible reason to like someone, how negative, how ridiculous. And now looking back, how prescient.
How many times have you seen that? The liking someone or something just because "the other side" doesn't? And it still really bothers me. That's not a good reason to like someone. You end up liking people like Ted Nugent if you do that.
For another reason, it's lazy. I mean it. I am all about defending your ideas and your reasons with valid arguments and facts. If the only thing you can come up with is you like the taste of liberal tears (an actual thing people say) then you shouldn't be allowed to make decisions.
I saw it as Trump was running for office. The people who wanted to vote for him so he could just blow everything up. I kept trying to stress that WE are the EVERYTHING he was going to be blowing up. But...you know...liberal tears. So I wasn't going to win that argument. And now when I point out that he is blowing up some serious shit, well, they don't want to hear it because obviously anyone who disagrees with them about the president has TDS so la la la...they aren't listening. Winning!
I see it now with people unfriending on Facebook because they cannot have someone around that doesn't believe the exact same things that they do. Now sometimes I get it. There are things that I believe that if you don't I'm not going to keep you around. There are things that if I find out you believe them I am also not going to keep you around. But everything? All of it? That's kind of crazy. How in the world can you defend your beliefs if no one ever challenges them? And why is it bad to have different beliefs? As long as what you believe isn't racist, homophobic, sexist...basically hurtful, then why shouldn't I have someone around who can challenge my thoughts on international trade policies?
And I'm not talking about challenging people's beliefs just to be an asshole either. You don't have to take it upon yourself to play devil's advocate for the world. Don't argue with them if you agree with them, just to argue, that's stupid. But if you actually disagree with someone and can respectfully debate them then go on ahead. But you can also just scroll on past.
And I totally understand how difficult this is to do. Brent had to delete a post the other day because he was making a general "don't be an idiot" statement linked to a news story and a group of his conservative friends took offense at the fact that it was a conservative who was tagged in the headline, even though the article itself had other examples, but who reads articles right? Then I (after much typing and deleting and debating) posted a list of points arguing their self satisfied circle jerk of superiority (because I, you know read the article and listened to the podcast they wanted to say said something it didn't). And well...Brent doesn't care for conflict, wasn't looking for conflict, was disgusted that his post was misinterpreted just for the sake of conflict and deleted it. So yeah, I did not scroll on past. Even though I thought about, because I know that Brent doesn't like conflict, but I couldn't leave it there because it made my jaw clench that nobody was challenging their posts.
But you don't have to challenge everything. You really don't. Even when everything in you is DYING to point out the fact that just LAST week they posted something completely CONTRADICTORY to what they are saying RIGHT now and NOT even seeing the IRONY in that...(hypothetically)
I used to really like to argue and debate. And every once in awhile I would post a reminder that we are more alike than we think and to not let people try to cause divisions where there really aren't. But now? I have a hard time arguing and debating because people aren't interested in ideas anymore, they are just interested in sides.
It makes me sad.
Not sad enough to cry liberal tears though.
Because they like that shit too much.
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