Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Saturday, August 20, 2016

For Social Media, Let's Just Knock That Shit Off.

The "shit" being "politics". Just knock it off, everyone.

Here's the thing: People are on social media to connect with each other. Distant relatives, service buddies, former co-workers, school classmates. You're looking to see if the kid who was with you in band has been enjoying his retirement. Did your nephew score well on her SATs. Someone lost their job, another got divorced, a third landed a job, a fourth just had twins. The kid across the street's son in your hometown got a pilot's job with American, his sister flys F/A-18s. Your cousin adopted a rescue pet. All that stuff.

But as for politics on social media, guess what, Bucko? Nobody fucking cares. This is a polarized election and I will hazard a guess that everyone who is planning on voting knows who they are supporting. Even if you're going to throw your vote down a rathole (voting for Johnson or Stein), you know who you're voting for.

So when you post about that shit on social media, all you do is likely piss people off. They're your friends and relatives, why would you hector them?

There was an old conversational rule in the Navy: Three topics were off-limits-- Sex, religion and politics. That rule kept the discussions civilized and mostly at a calm level.

Blogging isn't social media, it's more opinion media. You pretty much know what you're going to get. You don't want to read someone mocking The Donald for trying to pitch to black voters by talking to lily-white audiences, then you've come to the wrong place.

On social media, it's like going into the basement rec room and finding your half-drunk crazy uncle ranting about shit. You just leave the room. And yes, the cyber-equivalent of leaving the room is what I've been doing on social media, and I suspect that I'm not alone.

Can we have one corner of the Internet that is not polluted by politics, people?

3 comments:

Sikhandtake said...

Dan Rather on Rachael Maddow (Fri, Aug19) had a plausible theory as to why Trump was talking about blacks to a white audience. He knows he isn't going to get the Black vote, what he's trying to do is convince moderate white voters that he isn't as racist as everyone thinks.

Comrade Misfit said...

"clueless white voters."

Fixed that.

Nangleator said...

Here in Massachusetts, we had a story about a jogger being killed. Killer left behind little evidence and the police don't have much to go on.

It didn't stop a family member coming up at a family party and saying the killer is probably a Democrat.

I wonder if the country was like this before the Civil War, hating our neighbors based on political views, with no other information... Inventing whole personalities for the members of the other party.

Or did people not feel so intertwined with the enemy, since slavery was mostly based on state laws? Is this worse?