Friends are the people in your life who can call bullshit on you and make you laugh while they are doing it. Everyone else is expendable. I am on week 4 of the great FaceBook experiment, the one in which I have unsubscribed from people whose postings make you wonder why they were friended in the first place.
I love a vigorous debate, a healthy exercise in point/counter-point; I cannot stand attempts to dismiss someone's argument by attacking them personally or by relying on talking points. Folks whose value judgments are based on whether something comes from an R or a D are not people with whom one can debate anything. Ideas are either beneficial or harmful; they either promote liberty or diminish it; they either cost you money or they don't. Yes, that is a black and white view of things but much in life is black and white.
Nuance is another way of avoiding a decision or (gasp!) making a judgment, as if that is a bad thing. Please. People make judgments every day - in where they choose to live, with whom they associate, who they let their kids play with, the stores/restaurants they patronize, and so forth. While all men may be created equal, they do not all remain that way. Pretending otherwise is delusional but, at the same time, one should be able to explain the rationale for a judgment using something more than partisan affiliation as the calculus.
For instance, the noise involving the Catholics and birth control. The White House wants to require every employer who provides health insurance to cover the cost of birth control, of abortion, and of things like in-vitro fertilization. Set aside for a moment that this is not govt's business at all; the extent of benefits are a private contract between employer and employee. The interesting part is how the religious folks see this as a "war" on them. They conveniently forget that, for the past several presidential elections, Catholics have voted Democrat. Obama is a Democrat; Catholics supported him by a fair margin in ' 08. Elections have consequences and not always the consequences you hope for. When some of the most pro-life people on the planet vote the party that is not pro-life, it is difficult to take their protestations seriously. But, I digress.
FaceBook and other social media tools have the same effect on behavior as do tough times - they tend to reveal character. People will post or tweet things that they would never say directly to another person. That's not moral courage; it is a profile in cowardice. These tools offer the opportunity to vent about anything anytime; they do not include a self-censoring button or a cooling off device that suggests you actually think about the words you just typed before making them public. I am obviously right; how often has someone been forced to backtrack or apologize over a Twitter comment or FB post? Makes you wonder how many friendships have been ruined over opinions that were best left unshared.
I am headed to a multi-class high school reunion next month. Attendees will include people with whom I chat regularly and people whose opinions are no longer viewable. The former will be just as fun in person; I am less sure about the latter but am reasonably sure that my diminishing tolerance for weapons-grade levels of stupid will not reverse course. It could mean that some folks stop being even FB friends and that's okay. Remember, your friends are the ones who make you laugh at yourself when calling you out, who do not get offended or take personally even your most foolish moments. The other folks belong in the discard pile, just like that pair of pants from ten years ago that fits neither you nor the time.
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