Garbanzo Toons

Arguing on Facebook

I almost did it this morning, but just as last time when it almost happened, I got up and walked away from the computer. One of my liberal Facebook friends had made another political post. Many of my friends are liberals, and one of my self-imposed rules is to not get into political arguments on Facebook. The only time I break that rule is over Israel. Don't mess with me on Israel. I have spent time on newspaper and magazine comment pages arguing with dopes and hatemongers that I've never met about Israel. I don't always do it, sometimes the comment pages are such cesspools of open Jew-hatred that it's not worth the effort to wade in.

There are Facebook friends who use Facebook as their soapbox for their cause. That's fine. Many of us have a cause. You are welcome to your cause. But when you have over 20 posts per day on your cause, perhaps you should join a group or seek professional help. These are middle-aged adults who should have something better to do with their day. Besides, most of us probably got it within the first five posts. Are you really that dedicated to animal rights that you have to post every petition, and every abuse and rescue story, and every inspirational animal message that you find?

Although I mostly avoid politics, sometimes I will throw up something related to Israel or the occasional Milton Friedman video. If I have a need to expound on a topic in a stupid political rant, I have this blog. Everyone in the world is free to ignore it, and most of humanity is taking advantage of that right.

My kids explained to me how to delete these posts from my daily feed, and I might start deleting a few people. Of course we will still be close pals and true Facebook friends, but I won't have to scroll through multiple posts on "Romney is an idiot", or "you're stupid because you're not an atheist, only an idiot would believe in God", or "Capitalism is the root of all evil and all inequality because we should all be equal." But then, the reason I post Friedman is just to get the goats of the ranters. Mostly, my friends ignore those posts. I don't post very often, but when I do, I hope it's something clever and entertaining. It's "social" media, right? So I try to be social.

I don't post during dinner on the rare occasions when my wife and I are out on a date. I watch other people take photos of their dinner with their phones, and I know what they're doing. I have friends who do that regularly. While not as obnoxious as the political causes, it seems rude to ignore you spouse to do a Facebook post no matter how witty and clever you think you're being. Or maybe I'm too old-fashioned. If the food is really that special, or if I want to boast about the swell joint I took my wife to, then I will talk about it the next day.

But mostly, I'm not going to get drawn into a political argument. If the other person is as obsessive as I am, it could go on for days and waste countless hours. There are other, better ways to waste my time . . . like I said previously - by ranting on my blog.

Labels: computers, Facebook, politics

posted by Harry @ 1:29 PM