Tag Archives: GOP

Culture/Politics

Don't Drink the Water

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As I watch (and I admit, occasionally engage in) the meltdowns on Facebook and other social media, here’s a non-partisan thought on politics:

It’s not weakness to admit the shortcomings of the candidate or party you support. It’s not treachery to admit where the other candidate or party does well. Rather than making you a traitor to your own, it reveals you’re a person of consideration and character, refusing to be swept along by a stream of half-true headlines or news bites that tell you exactly what you might want to hear.
More than the evils of either (IMHO abysmal) main party candidate, I fear the drones on both sides who refuse to see anything that disagrees with what they want to believe.

Those who dismiss everything their candidate does wrong as if it isn’t on record and readily available for public review.

Those who turn on and savage public figures who they counted as allies for years prior to some perceived slight or difference of opinion.

Those who rely on the most suspect and sketchy source as fact when it is not supported by even one mainstream media outlet (and I include Fox in that).

This year I feel left with two horrible choices and perhaps a couple slightly better options that have no realistic chance of winning.

I want to blame the parties, the system, those in power.

But in my dealings with friends on both the right and the left, it’s all too clear that we’ve got the election the American people asked for.

I don’t unfriend people on Facebook. I may not agree with everyone but I like the variety of viewpoints (which I thought was one of the strong points of social media).

In light of willful, repeated ignorance in the face of several corrections or challenges, I’ve had to consider it several times now. Even people who concede one day that their extreme points take it too far–these same people will repeat the exact same words the next day as if it’s some obvious, unassailable truth.

In Rio, some sources report the water is tainted with sewage. Athletes are reportedly being advised: “Particpate, but keep your mouth closed to avoid contamination.”

I feel like that is good advice for social media over the next few months, as well as for the voting booth in November.

100 more days. (Followed by four years of further baseless and myopic vitriol on both sides.)

Good luck, America, and good night.

Culture/Politics

In This Together

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Like most of America, I watched the Super Bowl on Sunday (Monday morning for me, living on Okinawa).

My wife is a Broncos fan, and my daughter is too–or was, or maybe still is but has better things to do, or maybe teenage years are hard and you never know what interests of theirs suddenly change…

Anyway. 

The conservative pages my wife follows were full of furor about Beyonce’s most recent video being some anti-cop, pro-Black Lives Matter social commentary. And it seemed they all decried bringing racism and tensions into the Super Bowl halftime show.

It got to the point even my wife didn’t want to see it because 1) she expected some risqué or provocative stuff my kids didn’t need to watch and 2) all these pages couldn’t be wrong, right?

We watched it anyway. And I was very pleasantly surprised to hear a variety of expressions akin to “We’re all in this together” sung or said by people in an array of skin tones standing arm in arm.

People of all colors just having fun, summing up with a simple message of “Love.”

Where was the Black Power I was supposed to be afraid of or offended by? Where was Beyonce’s promised attempt to stir up controversy?

Well it was all over the comments on those conservative pages. Apparently I was supposed to read “reverse racism” or “White guilt” or “perpetuating the hate” into a bunch of people dancing and just very obviously having a good time.

And of course the dozens of voices I looked at in the thousands of comments all talked about how Beyoncé should have been banned, or how they changed the channel rather than watch something so offensive, or how it was so patently obvious to anybody with a brain and if you didn’t see it, you’re a clueless liberal moron.

And when the rants about Beyoncé weren’t enough, other sites proclaimed the fearsome Gay Agenda was behind it all, what with those rainbow colors and the big “Love” display in the stands.

When the truth isn’t good enough for a story, go for what plays well to the base, I suppose. 

flag_wrapped_bible
So many of these conservatives are too ridiculous for a traditional Christian couple to get behind them. So many are willing to back Trump and like-minded “politicians” regardless of what they say or do. 

They wrap themselves in the flag and cling to the Bible, but they condemn the expressions of unity and love that both those cherished symbols exemplify.

I think my wife unfollowed several pages over their ridiculous pre-biased non-coverage and the flame wars that ensued when we called them out. You may not know her, but that act alone says something.

To such narrow-minded and ignorant people, who create controversy where there was none and spread the hate they claim to condemn, let that “unfollow” say this:
We were in this together with you. 

We’re not anymore.