Tuesday, July 24, 2012

What is facebook for?

It's like the Chatterbox Cafe.

We meet up here to encourage and support each other. We meet here to share ideas and to commisserate. We meet up here to brag about our kids and face the passages of life. We share pictures, quips, provocations and wisdom. We vent, rant, speak up and speak out. We generally know we are preaching to the crowd when we post our political comments. I know I do. And I don't write about things to disrespect others but to encourage kindred spirits and to express myself.

I draw the line at looney tunes. Or, as Annika calls it, loon birds on pills.

I love my Republican family. I don't agree with them but we have indeed agreed to disagree. I engage from time to time but often just let their comments go. I can't argue with everything. And I don't want to. I want to learn and I do try to understand what my family and friends have to say when their views differ from mine.

But hate and threatening language is beyond the pale. I unfriended a few folk today because they had lost touch with the reality that most of us on earth seem to appreciate. Even their own conservative friends urged them to reign it in.

I wrote a FB post earlier today about my decision to block folk. It wasn't the mainstream of the family and friends who are my GOP pals I blocked, or would. We are friends, in spite of our differences. And frankly, I want to know and understand what is so upsetting to the GOP about my views and those of the Democratic stream.

I'll continue to post my views and will welcome rational dialogue -- as my earlier post -- put it. But stuff so loony I don't want to pollute your tender brains with it, well, that is beyond my tolerance level. And it isn't healthy for children and other living things.

I hope we can learn to know and understand and respect one another better. Wouldn't that be a good use for facebook?

Meanwhile, I'll be at the usual table in the Chatterbox Cafe. See you there, friend.

No comments: