Your Point of View Sucks

[bedsitter23]

This election will surely stand out for a variety of reasons. 

History will tell us those, but it is safe to assume that one of them will be 'This is the first election where we got in our friends' faces with our political views'.

I do hate that we have entered a time in politics where it is all about 'not giving an inch to your opponent', and no one cares about actually working together to solve problems.  (60 Minutes touched on this earlier tonight with an interview with Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, in which they said the right words, but gave the distinct impression that they were not particularly happy to be there together).

Although I have been pretty outspoken about my political views here, this forum is set up in such a way that you know what you are going to get.  Of course, only a dedicated few use LiveJournal in 2012.

So, of course I am talking Facebook.  I would note that I don't post political messages there (I hardly post there at all, in fact), I am okay with it.  I also have life-long friends who I have a deep political divide with.  However, i do find some solace in that as the years go by, things don't change.

Facebook has become such a part of people's lives though, that this is where things go awry.  FB is a medium in which we can push our viewpoints in front of dozens of eyes, and those eyes are varied- close friends, co-workers,schoolmates, relatives, etc.

I shrug it off (though I do find some fascination in finding out what that person I know to talk to, but barely am acquainted with, does when he/she goes in the voter booth), but even I am about sick of hearing about Mitt and Bronco every day.  Of course, we know some offenders are worse than others - people who disagree with me (of course), but also those that post things that would be quickly dis-proven by a quick trip over to Snopes.  In accordance with that, there is one post from someone I respect deeply (and mostly disagree with) that went for the extreme analogy - in this case, the word he used was 'traitor', but this also could be attributed to those who use terms like 'Nazi' and 'hater of America'.

USA Today did a story on this awhile back and it's not surprising.

A friend posted some negative information about presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Facebook, and Perlow, who considers himself a moderate, pointed out what he saw as flaws in that commentary.

That online disagreement escalated into an offline disintegration of their more-than-10-year friendship.

"He got really angry with me," says Perlow, 43. "He defriended me on Facebook and told me not to send him any more e-mails. He also defriended my wife, who had nothing to do with it."

Such, it seems we run into the problems of social media.  We feel free to post our innermost thoughts, even if we wouldn't go around saying it out loud. (Although maybe we make assumptions like that in real life, too.  An acquaintance of mine spoke highly in support of the Chik-Fil-A's CEO stand against gay marriage, something I am not okay with).

I don't know what the answer is, though hopefully I try to be on the side where I am only pushing my thoughts in front of people who are genuinely interested in them. 

It also shouldn't be surprising that enterprising developers already have a 'take the politics out of Facebook' program avaialble for those who want it.