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No longer on the river and, again, an empty nester. Back to living on Fleming Island and making some more friends!

Monday, February 22, 2016

Trying my best to not be....

....a single-issue friend! I have been noticing on the media sights and FB how folks are posting their wishes for a swift end to the political season so they can preserve their friendships. Yes, this sort of thing tends to separate the men from the boys, or the friends from acquaintances. There are people with whom I am friends and can discuss just about anything under the sun, except religion. With others, we can talk about religion and church, but some other things are better left not talked about at all. One could think everything is hunky dory and you enjoy the time spent together or the connections made via the Internet, until it comes to politics. Then, all bets are off! 

My home state went through some tempestuous political contests (in the truest form of the word!) a few years ago regarding their governor and other elected officials. The state capitol was overtaken and occupied and things were quite ugly, and embarrassing to me, since I like to brag on my home state from time to time. During the recalls and other electoral stuff, I had to literally shut my eyes when reading others postings. When normally I enjoyed the things they had to say, this situation brought out a side of them which was not pleasant. Lack of information or getting bad information, not checking the facts, getting 'news' from around the water cooler or in the factory lunch room wasn't making for quality postings. Yikes! 

Some of those people were unfriended by me, I didn't really need their names padding my number of 'friends', and I never looked back. Others I miss hearing about and from, while others I am okay not having around or hearing from. I wonder if anyone has blocked or unfriended me for cause...Normally I don't post much about politics on my own FB page and am careful about what I say on other's. I sure would not wish to come off as being dumb or foolish, considering myself fairly well up to speed on what's going on the realm of politics and current events. And mostly I try to not be angry, which seems to be a popular theme this political season. 

What other topic would I expect to unfriend people, stop communicating with them? Fashion? Finance? Restaurant choices? Likely not, as none of those affect the survival of our nation (except for finance, I suppose) and the preservation of our Constitution and form of governance. People simply must do their homework, study the information available about the candidates, evaluate and compare their positions, and make an educated choice. Using anger as the basis for voting for a person regardless of their stance on issues is just foolishness and is downright dangerous for our nation. People who think that politics is ugly now need to simply look back in the history of our nation's politics to see how ugly things were even back then, minus the TV cameras and Internet! This ain't nothing yet!