Posted on 11/02/2013 9:02:45 AM PDT by Republicanprofessor
1) Social media: Recently I made some pretty strong political posts on Facebook about Benghazi. Then I felt badly and was afraid to check FB in fear of what responses I would find. Why did I feel that way? My liberal friends post their memes all the time, but the conservatives are shy about expressing their opinions. We are bothered by what people will think. But why is this the case? If they are truly our “friends” on Facebook, we should be able to post what we really think and feel, right? We read our friends’ posts and even appreciate their notes about their pet issues and projects, their families and even the difficulties they have overcome in their lives.
It has been said that small minds talk about people, others talk about events and still others talk about ideas. I post about a variety of things: skiing, sunsets, teaching issues, books, travel and politics. I think that social media is the place to exchange all kinds of ideas, and we see everything on social media; funny events and family pictures and celebrity scandals all over our Facebook pages, whether we subscribe to them or not. It is certainly wonderful to begin, rekindle and maintain connections with friends old and new, to see their families grow, marry and create grandchildren. But as I tell my husband (who always complains about the emptiness of Facebook), you create your own page and your contacts with your friends. If you find the content to be dull, find more enlightened friends.
2) Political posts: can they change people’s minds? So, why is it tricky to post about politics? I think the internet has made it easier to find all kinds of angles on any event that you wish to follow, some legitimate and some fabricated. And if we read our articles or blogs only from our favorite political side, it is easy to get revved up and to post articles and memes that echo our political fervor. I much prefer posting articles to memes since one can answer and debate these ideas within articles, while memes are thrust into one’s face to propagandize, not to critically analyze.
Obama is the first president elected with internet expertise. He definitely knows how to campaign. But he is also the first president wherein the internet could be his undoing. He may tap reporter’s phones, the NSA may tap other phones and track emails, and the IRS may punish those on the wrong political side, but the internet continues to counter his statements with facts and stories that dispute the statements made by his administration. Those who fight the corruption and cronyism of his administration will not give up, just as those who disagreed with the Bush administration keep up their criticism even to the present day.
There are some issues wherein one can reasonably debate both sides: immigration is one of these and one which, I admit, I have not been closely following. But then it gets to the point where actions are either right or wrong, and sometimes one can become trapped on the “wrong” side without realizing it. For me, the president’s actions before, during and following the Benghazi attack are wrong on every level. But my liberal friends still defend him. How difficult is it to just admit that, with more information, that one’s former support of one side seems to have been the wrong thing to do, even if in doing so one is deviating from the party line? Is that even possible, or do people just blindly follow the talking points of their party without critically analyzing the events and facts? Does the internet make it easier or more difficult to change sides, to thus align our politics with our innermost values? Or do our political alliances limit us to being tied to a political party regardless of what turns out to be right or wrong? I would encourage my liberal and Democratic friends to seriously re-evaluate their support of Obama, who is not turning out to be quite the “hope and change” president they expected. How many scandals does it take to outrage the Democrats enough for them to pull support from their president, or do the ends always justify the means? It should be acceptable to change your allegiance to Obama. If the president has the military shoot citizens in an attempted coup to become dictator, would Democrats finally change their support for him then?
3) Too much stress upon “winners” and “losers?” Right or wrong, win or lose. It also occurred to me recently that perhaps our society places too much important upon “winning” and “losing” in our lives and in our politics. Ours is, or was, a competitive society where the strong survive. As I write, the Red Sox parade is occurring in Boston. Hurray for them. We live in New England, but we are barely aware of organized sports, since wins and losses (exciting as they are) are often transient, here today and gone to a different team tomorrow.
But with the recent government shutdown, it seemed that what mattered most to those in Congress and the media was who “won” the shutdown so they could blame the other party and thus benefit from their distress. Facts, purposes, rebellions did not matter. The media, already leaning toward one major party, distorted the sources of the shutdown in order to damage the other party as much as possible. If you repeat a lie often enough, people buy it as the truth. “Obama won, the Republicans lost.” Only after the mean and “racist” Republicans caved on defunding Obamacare did the Democrats begin to waiver in their support for the disastrous ACA. No credit given to the courage of those who stood for their principles. No, destroy them, and then we’ll change our minds and change the media’s approach and all will be well again.
Then you also have the loss of civility. If it is all about who wins and who loses, then you can call the losers or even those with whom you disagree any names you want. The political parties become bullies and the polarization between them becomes unworkable. Consider the names that Democrats called Republicans: racist, unhinged, legislative arsonists, people with “a bomb strapped to their chest”, blatant extortionists, hostage takers, and worse. Democrat rarely debate the facts of the issues. They desecrated Romney’s character over the summer of 2012, calling him a liar again and again. I could never discern what specific lie they were referring to. No matter about the specifics, if we call them enough names, they will lose their credibility.
The problem then is trying to work with those whose reputations you have ruined. The American public decries the loss of civility, but we love the competition (imbedded in our society) that leads to “winners” and “losers.” We complain that Congress does not work together to solve the issues of the day (deficits, unemployment, staggering taxes and debt), but would you want to work with the people who had just called you a liar and a racist? I have heard that if it is difficult to work with someone, you should look in the mirror yourself and find who is to blame.
4) Working together to solve problems: Wouldn’t it be more productive if, instead of blaming the others and calling them names, our political leaders would actually meet together and openly exchange ideas and work toward a solution? The solutions do not have to reside in either one party or the other; there must be many ideas that could be aired and brainstormed with others to find solutions that could be great but which have not occurred to anyone yet. Could the politicians let down their defensive barriers and group think paralysis long enough to solve these issues? Could they actually think of the good of the country instead of their own seats and the pork projects for their districts?
Here are two ideas for beginning this process or cooperation and reducing the national debt: my dream, admittedly naïve as it is, would be to ensure that each congressman and senator eliminated at least one pork barrel project in their district, thus saving tax paying dollars for everyone and reducing the debt. We could also institute a 10% cut across the entire national budget as the first step in reducing that national debt. My hope would be that good managers could eliminate what must be at least 10% of waste across the board. Politicians would meet and consider the best solutions to the problems apart from their own district’s benefit. They would be receptive to facts and ideas on the other side of the aisle, because neither side has a monopoly on truth. And they would be guided by facts, not feelings. Much of the best intentioned legislation has turned out to be a disaster because it was not thought-through carefully enough. Politicians should be free to admit their errors and work toward a solution. It should not be too hard. They are adults, are they not?
Perhaps if the people of the U.S. become fed-up enough, they will indeed elect a new set of representatives and a new third of the Senate. Perhaps we need a new crowd of fresh faces to begin the respect, courage, honesty and hard work that should characterize our political parties as well as the nation itself. Ours is a particularly unique nation and it should be able to recover from the intense hatred and dysfunction that this partisanship has created.
Nov. 2, 2013
My former friend is a white guy.
And that really doesn’t diminish what I’ve said. It is true nonetheless.
I’m intrigued by the notion that previously honest people have now turned to lying. A good friend of mine posted on Facebook that Sarah Palin believed that Jesus liked to celebrate Easter. I pointed this out as a hoax and at first she responded “I don’t know what you are talking about.” This is the first lie that Lefties tell - a kind of denial. So, I linked her to the hoax website and she wrote back that she hadn’t posted the hoax on FB AT ALL. So, I showed her post to her. She then became horribly angry at me and told me that rather than taking down her malicious post, I should write a separate piece “exclaiming Palin’s many virtues.” The dripping hatred and sarcasm stopped my heart for a second! It was like staring into an abyss.
As far as I know, the lie about SP is still up there.
That's the root of your problem right there.
If you actually choose to associate with people who support the destructive agenda of the political left, then you're obviously dealing with some sort of moral dissonance on a personal level.
Or maybe you're one of those who thinks you can save these fallen people from themselves if you just present conservative principles and solutions to them with just the right touch.
The only other possibility is that you're a wishy washy sort who looks at liberals as good people who are just on the other side of that awful subject of politics.
According to your post, you appear to be in one or more of the above conditions. I think it would be healthy for you to realize that our nation is in the middle of an historic division. Half the nation wants to return to the path that was laid down by the Framers, and the other half are a mix of useless eaters and ideologues, who want to see the country transformed into a Socialist/Communist state.
You'll never be able to bring them to enlightenment through reason or logic. They have to endure the pain and consequences of their utopian ideals to come to the proper realizations.
Sigh. Your post is so telling. Been there, done that. Oddly enough, I generally try and avoid politics on FB but then some crazy, hateful lib has to go too far and I blow my stack.
As I’m sure you know, you cannot get a PhD in this country until you’ve been turned into a liberal robot.
Those of us who have jobs take a risk in posting under real-world identities. Especialy those who work for Obama voters.
I post about politics under pseudonyms in various forums.
my experience....a handful of friends on the right and left regularly post the memes.
The liberals posts are usually very personally insulting -they don’t care they are insulting half the people on their list.
The conservatives tend to post on issues - abortion - Obamacare - Benghazi.
In the end - I don’t think anyone is convincing anyone.
When people respond to the memes they tend to say things like - “oh yeah? well YOUR side is guilty of ....blah blah blah...”
I love the scroll button
Indeed. That's why I stopped posting about politics on FB over a year ago.
It's all too easy for potential customers to look me up on FB and see where I stand politically. I have a small family business, and in this economy, I can't afford to turn off a single paying customer.
the interesting thing is.... the “professionals” I see that are the most openly rabid vicious meme posters are female teachers.
I do know conservative teachers - men and women - but they don’t post about politics.
There is only one side that is afraid of “repercussions”
It scared me a bit...and I don't scare easily.
“Why Republicans hate the Obama family.”
When I saw that one, I said to the liberal who posted it, “I’m glad you liberals finally admit that the traditional family, consisting of a male father and female mother, who marry and stay together, is the best way.” Liberal isn’t speaking to me anymore. No loss.
I got rid of my liberal friends, but some of my friends haven’t. I will sometimes go ahead and nuke the stupid arguments of my friend’s friends when necessary, but I follow a couple of rules and call out my opponents when they don’t:
1. No logical fallacies.
2. No name-calling or insulting.
3. Never change the original subject of the argument.
I figure that if I don’t have the truth, logic, and a ton of facts on my side and can’t do it civilly, I have no business making an argument. I would recommend using these rules in your own public dealings with proglibs. They will almost always shut up and go away after you make them look like vulgar, ignorant idiots.
Great comeback on your part!
I wanted to paraphrase that quote about small and great minds so that I would not insult some of my friends who only post about people.....:)
Liberal friends....well, I work in a state college in Mass, so I am surrounded by liberals. If I didn’t make friends with them, I’d have no friends at all. (And I actually had them as friends long before I used the internet politically.)
“You’ll never be able to bring them to enlightenment through reason or logic. They have to endure the pain and consequences of their utopian ideals to come to the proper realizations.”
Well, maybe Obamacare will be just the kind of apocalypse they need to see the light.
In any case, I have to keep trying to open their minds. I think I have succeeded with a few students, so that is the beginning. At least the students will see that there is thought beyond liberalism.
Thanks to everyone who read and replied. I really appreciate the support and I’m glad that there are others out there who persevere in their political posts and try to make rational arguments with the liberals.
You have given me great courage to continue. I think we can make a difference. And it is better to try than to give up....
Howdy professor,
I find myself in much the same shoes as you. I am an adjunct professor of humanities at a community college here in Nevada. For the most part I teach a course entitled “The American Experience and Constitutional Change”. It is supposed to cover a student’s constitutional requirements and as such, I focus on history more than art and culture. Since my MA is in American History that is good for me and I try to concentrate studies for the students on the Revolutionary, Civil War and World War II eras.
I like to think that I play a pretty fair devil’s advocate but I also emphasize from the beginning of the class that I will expose the students to views they have probably never heard before, in order that they can develop critical thinking skills, rather than merely parroting ability.
In any event, my experience on Facebook has been very similar as well. I try not to make many political posts as I am always wondering if I will be checked by administration. However, whenever one of my liberal friends posts something absurd and about which I have some expertise, I will challenge them. Funny thing is, I have been “unfriended” 4 times. In each instance it was over a political debate and the liberal just couldn’t stand being confronted in a civil manner with facts and logic. In fact, just this last week was the latest incident and I was collateral damage from a liberal’s disagreement with a stance taken by a mutual friend. He knew I would sympathize and while I wasn’t going to even post to the thread, he preemptively “unfriended” me.
That is my experience with newcomer political activist liberals on Facebook. They can cut and paste talking points and memes with the best of them, but ask them to think with clarity, to assess facts and logic and they fume....
Trying to open the eyes of an adult liberal is like trying to make peace with Al-Qaeda. I truly believe it is up to the Spirit of God to open someone’s ears and eyes to the truth, so we have to shout the truth from the rooftops, and pray He will open their ears and eyes.
I’m always sharing FR posts and other conservative, pro-life and pro-military articles. I think only about 5 people probably have my stuff seen on their timeline.
Nice to “meet” another conservative professor, although I suspect Nevada is overall more conservative than Mass.
I have tenure, thank goodness, and they actually knew my political leanings at that time. So I am not too worried about a backlash.
Good for you for teaching students to think “constitutionally.” I teach a different subject altogether, so I don’t get too political in the classroom other than voicing appreciation for the freedom and accomplishments of our great country over time and the variety of cultural achievements that result.
I never know during election time how much I could/should voice alternative ideas in class. In 2012, I figured Massachusetts was a “lost cause” for Romney, so I didn’t rock the boat too much. I may change my mind in the future.
My husband made a political post on his FB page, and two of his liberal “friends” demanded that he remove it. From his own page! I don’t think that they’re speaking any longer.
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