I have not made up my mind who I am going to vote for in the presidential election next year. Until I see who gets the nominations in each party, I don't really want to expend too much mental energy on it, frankly.
I vote for the person, not the party. I have voted for Democrats and I have voted for Republicans. (I might have even voted Libertarian at some point..)
The very first presidential race I voted in was in 1980. I was a freshman in college. I didn't have a car. My dad drove to campus, picked me up, and brought me home in time to vote just before the polls closed. I went back to school the next day.
I remember asking him who I should vote for, because I was so busy with school I really wasn't paying attention to the election. He said something along the lines of "vote for Reagan, he's a good man." So I voted for Reagan, something I regretted later.
Dad never told me how to vote again. We had a lot of rousing arguments about politics when I was in my 20's.
I never thought he didn't love me because of my political opinions, though. There was always mutual respect and love.
It saddens and disturbs me to see how ugly things have gotten over on Facebook, and sometimes in blogs, too. I read two blogs written by women who are highly intelligent and I respect them. Both refer to Republicans like they are villains and monsters. If I could sit them down in front of me and give them a lecture I'd say something like this: my mother is a Republican. She picked that party in the late 1950's when the Republican party stood for integration and against racism. In the South, the Democratic party was the party of racism and segregation [George Wallace is a great example of that] and she felt like that was the wrong side. Today, she doesn't agree with the Republican positions on certain issues, but she sticks with the party because she agrees with most of their positions. To blatantly paint all current Republicans as evil is just wrong.
Let me make something clear right away: I do not belong to either party and I will never claim affiliation with either party. There are good things and bad things about both parties.
However, I grew up with very Republican parents, parents who worked for that party. They felt like it had the best vision for America. In doing so, they defied their parents, who were Democrats. Some of my aunts and uncles vehemently disagreed with my parents, but the discourse always remained civil. Nobody stopped loving their sibling because of political disagreements.
My grandmother Mamaw Hasty had a rule: no discussions of politics or religion at the dinner table. She kept the peace that way.
Facebook has become sort of a virtual dinner table/meeting place for folks from all over to share jokes and funny stories and videos, sometimes sad news, sometimes prayer requests.
I made a decision months ago to resist the urge to post political things on Facebook. I have kept to that decision, for the most part.
I have friends on there who are very liberal and friends who are very conservative.
I feel sad that I am getting to a place where I have had to stop looking at what many of my very liberal and very conservative friends post, because the political things they post are so often distortions of the truth, or just plain lies, or they contain foul language and are really hateful. Most of the time I just "Un-Follow" folks who post crap like that, so we are still friends but I don't see what they post unless I go deliberately over to their page and see. Sometimes I have to reluctantly un-Friend them.
I realized recently, however, that if I un-Follow all my friends who post stuff that's tacky I won't have anything in my Newsfeed.
This was posted by a friend of mine just this morning:
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
Here's something I want all my Facebook friends to consider. IF you post something that makes me really angry, whether it's because I disagree, or because I think you're simply trying to inflame opinion, do not expect me to think kindly about you. I am speaking to both sides of the political spectrum here, too.
I see things a lot of times and I think "That's pretty outrageous. I wonder if it's true?" and then I Google it and try to do some research. Oftentimes it is NOT true. Or, it may contain a kernel of truth, but then things have been distorted or exaggerated to simply provoke a reaction. Hateful memes make me furious.
We need to return to civility in this country. We need to stop hollering at each other and actually LISTEN to the other person's opinion. If someone posts something they've written which is thoughtful and from the heart, even if I disagree, I don't get mad. If it's a link to a thoughtful, well-written piece, that's OK too. However, if someone posts something that's just hateful jargon, I get angry.
Debate used to be civilized. There were rules.
Let's go back to that, before we all turn into haters.
