My Rant on Facebook and Politics

(Forewarning:  It's late and I've taken the liberty to swear in this post, so there.  You've been forewarned.)

I've been thinking about cutting out of Facebook.  It's sort of a weird thing, this Facebook business.  If I respond to "friend requests" from all the folks I've known, I get this odd mishmash of "friends" - some I hardly know, others I know well, and some are people I'm certain I never spoke with in high school but they got an exhaustive list of their graduating class and sent a bulk friend request to all.  On one hand, it's nice to have a diverse group of "friends", but on the other hand, some of them I wouldn't be very likely to be friendly with, and I'm pretty sure we would never meet up for coffee.  So, in reality we're not friends. 

I was surfing through Facebook tonight and a high school acquaintance wrote a very eloquent piece defending her daughters' rights to express their political opinions and then she respectfully requested that people just un-friend them if they couldn't be kind in their commenting.  She admitted that the girls aren't engaging in "extensive fact checking", like the "Fox News Network", as they write their thoughts on the social networking site.  I giggled.  Because Fox is so busy in extensive fact checking, I'm sure.  I de-friended her.  No, I'm actually kidding, but I'm thinking about it because to be perfectly honest, that's just a stupid thing to say about Fox.  I will agree with some other points though, and I applaud (truly) her choice to defend her kids.

But, I think the ability to just defriend willy nilly is, quite honestly, ridiculous.  I'm not saying I haven't done it, because I have, but nonetheless, it's a bizarre concept in the world of friendship.  What other sort of friendship is like this, other than a "virtual" friendship?  Now, to be fair, I've reconnected with some folks I value and respect enormously, and am thrilled to have these folks in my life, even if it is mainly through this site - but then there are those I simply defriend and think no more about.  Weird.

And then, there's the politics.  Which I know precious little of, and cannot keep my nose out of.  (By the way, I recognize that I've completed a number of sentences with prepositions.  Sorry.  Of.  At.  In.)  I was "friends" with this guy who, I swear to you, I never uttered a word to in my entire life and wouldn't have been caught dead talking to in high school (he was a conservative, republican, hunter, while I was a punk liberal non-hunter).  And he was all distraught when Obama's health care act was passed.  I commented that I was glad - probably not appealing to the most supportive audience.  Then, some angry guy I've probably never met started "yelling" at me (I know this because of his use of caps...  and this is making me laugh, because really, why do we ever assume to have any insight regarding one's tone in these short, usually oddly written, out of context blurbs people jot down on Facebook?), and - now I'm finally getting to the point I meant to make at the beginning of this post - upon warning me of the almost certain destruction of all that is good and meaningful in our current health care system, he said, "You'll see".  Ok, I thought, I guess I will.

But, here's the weird thing:  I've now heard that exact quote 3 times in the past couple months - all said by conservatives.  Is this part of their rhetoric, like the "Yes we can!" of Obama's first campaign?  What does this "you'll see" statement mean?  Is it meant to freak me out?  Because it's beginning to.

When I thought Obama might not win this election I promised myself that I would get much more involved and fight tooth and nail to keep women's rights in place, and fight for civil rights for all people, not just some.  I figured if Romney stepped in, I better too because whatever I could do would be at least something in the right direction (but by "right", I mean "positive"...).  Honestly, I think I'm going to have to step it up anyway, regardless of who's in office, but at least now I feel a little less pressure.  But, what I find interesting about this "you'll see" statement is that it feels like there is an ambivalence out there (which, to be perfectly fair, can be found anywhere regardless of the party one belongs to) - a sense that people are so angry that they're willing to just watch the country go to hell in a hand basket (if it were to come to that) just to prove to some how very right they were.  Well, to that I say, what the fuck?!  I get that frustration, I even get the anger. But to say, "Hey, our nation is heading for the crapper and it's gonna take us all down, and while that's happening I'm just gonna hang around and do nothing so that I can see the look on your face when you see how right I was," is absolutely crazy.  Isn't this what we mean when we say we're cutting off our nose to spite our face? 

Well, I can't make this a pretty and noble post now that I dropped the f word, but here's what I really think the parties need to be doing, and what we as individuals can be doing:  we have to work together.  I know it sounds cheesy and warm fuzzy and all that makes me want to yack, but here's the deal:  I don't have to like those I'm working with, and I don't have to agree with them either, but I do want a common goal.  I want a safe, secure,positive, polite, respectful, and healthy world for my kids and I would be happy to work with those I fundamentally do not agree with IF we could just come to some agreement like that one. 

I recognize that each individual thinks about and reaches that common goal in a different way, and that I'm oversimplifying the whole darn thing.  While we must value our diversity and differences of opinion, mustn't  we also agree that whatever we do can only be accomplished if we all do it together, and at least attempt to build bridges between the parties and compromise for the good of all people?  It seems worth it to me.
I don't want some folks working hard and others thumbing their noses at them because they're trying to prove a point.  There are all sorts of points made by that, and maybe none of them were the intended ones.  I want all of us to work toward the common good together, and maybe then we'll see something worth seeing.