The last few days...Facebook has just been a mess. I've culled most of the libertarian leaning from my friends list along with right wingers. But then...someone ELSE's conversation from a friend's list will show up. And I've decided to stop being polite to them. The last one ended with me flat-out telling them 'You can have your own opinions, not your own facts'. The response was postings of right-wing interpretations of the latest CBO in an effort to prove that the Obama admin. is the OMG worst spender EVER. Then someone chimed in that he was paying for FOUR wars? Umm, huh?
Guess who said all this? Below the Baguette..
And the worst part? The offenders were WOMEN, working class women. Why are the worst offenders ALWAYS these working class people?! I'm not trying to sound elitist, but I'm baffled. I explained to another before defriending him (in discussing infrastructure spending and public works, he compared 'who will build the roads' to slavers saying 'who will pick the cotton'...um..I'm black) that he makes barely 35k a year doing retail management and is not college educated but disturbingly is a hardcore libertarian (that supported Hillary?!). I then explained to him that if ANYONE should be politically conservative, it should be ME. I own a home that's converted to rental property, travel for a high paying IT consulting job and travel internationally for fun, driving expensive cars. I'm VERY fortunate...but I am appreciative of the public infrastructure that made that possible: Great public schools and teachers, and an affordable state college system, and public spending that created demand for a lot of my early projects.
But they seem to want to take that away...FROM THEMSELVES. I asked him why he chooses to be ignorant, chooses to support people that don't want to help him at ALL.
But the main question I have is...where does it end? I don't want to shut out opposing viewpoints..but these people DON'T WANT TO DISCUSS. They are making public policy akin to religion...something taken on faith and not to be questioned. They can't be reasoned with..and it's getting to the point that it HURTS even reading what they say.
I feel like we are just hanging on until President Obama's last year of office. I know some here may disagree..but when there's another white person in the white house, even a Dem, I just don't see the vitriol being this bad on the right. It's like they are trying to make it so bad that no minority will ever want the job again. If I were the Castro brothers, or an Asian person...I'd look at the last 4.5 years and say 'Yeah...I'll just aim for the C-level boardroom instead. Hell, it's what I'm doing.
Am I wrong for thinking that, wanting to shut off all debate and contact with these people for another 2 years?
I don't know what to do anymore.