OT Civil discourse now is impossible in the United States

I'm a little bit frustrated and angry right now, so I thank you in advance for understanding.

A friend of mine posted on social media today one of those memes about us not having enough money because we are paying people who are on welfare because they refuse to work. That bothers me, because I think it's a divisive and misinformed message; the statistics I've seen show at least half of the people on public assistance do work, they just have jobs that either are unstable or don't pay enough.

The other side of that is that I've seen studies that show a bunch of Fortune 500 companies paid no taxes in years in which they turned a profit. Some even received government subsidies in addition.

So I posted a link on my Facebook and say that it bothers me that we have people living in poverty, without proper healthcare, education and housing while some of the wealthiest people and corporations pay less in tax than the lower class does.

I don't think that's necessarily a political argument as much as a socio-economic one, but, of course, it is going to be taken as political because it does lean toward talking points of one particular ideology over the other.

Of course, someone immediately comes on espousing the good of supply side economics and how these companies paying no tax have allowed them to hire more people. But I responded with a link to statistics showing that the vast majority of the financial gains have gone to other things that don't benefit the worker -- like CEO pay and stock buy-backs.

I then took the subject a different direction. I asked how we can support our military if we don't have a tax base to raise the money to do so? How can we afford to pay, train, equip and house soldiers and also take care of their healthcare and their retirement if we refuse to tax the wealthy and have a growing class in poverty that doesn't have the money to support them?

I said I think it makes someone anti-military to refuse to try to raise the proper funding to support the military.

That sufficiently derailed the person who originally responded. However, another friend of mine -- who has a son in the military -- comes on and says I am disrespecting the military by saying what I said. She agrees with me the military needs more money, but she says taxing the wealthy is not the way to accumulate it. She says we need to cut foreign aid and give that money to our military instead.

I point out that foreign aid is $50 billion and our military budget is $600 billion, so I don't think that will cover the needs better than just making wealthy businesses pay some tax. She says that won't make a difference, that the government will just waste the tax money anyway.

So I ask what she thinks the solution is. She tells me to drop the subject because I'll never understand and I am making her angry by disrespecting her son. She's doing this on my FB wall.

I told her I'm not going to drop it and she has no right to ask me. I've have more than a half-dozen close relatives serve in the military in addition to the young lady I am in love with right now. She said it's not the same as her knowledge of the subject because of her son.

I'm perturbed. I think she's using her friend to defend a political stance -- yes, I can see if someone would say I did the same thing. But she's a good friend, and both of us have been supportive to one another in tough times, probably her a little more to me, but it was mutual support. That said, I can't believe she's coming to my page and telling me what I can and cannot discuss. And I feel I have to pull my punches because I don't want to blow her up completely.

And this all made me miss the first quarter of the playoff game, so I am ticked. And frustrated. And sad.

 

FUCK OFF! GO DIE!

 

Believe me. Sometimes I would like to.

 

I see you need your snickers, buddy. That's right. You prefer your Coors Light! That watered down stuff.

 

We won.

 

I had a Coors light at McCormick and Schmick's last Saturday evening and it was good. Complimented my jumbo shrimp cocktail extremely well. My wife had a Hefeweisen and a wedge of lemon with her coconut shrimp and a superb orange sauce. Thinking about the same thing tonight.

 

Just got back from there. Had the same thing except my wife added the Buffalo Wings and replaced the Hefeweisen with a margarita. It was excellent.
Oh, by the way, met Enis Kanter there and got my picture taken with him. Thought I'd throw that in as an afterthought. Oh, who am I kidding. I was delighted.

 

Civil discourse is very, very hard on the internet, and much easier in person. Its one of the reasons I stay out of many of the OT conversations here. I think the mods do a good job at trying to keep things civil, but on the internet, I would say that “pulling” your punches is often a good move, not because you need to water down your thoughts, but because it is so hard to convey your thoughts in text. Its something writers have struggled with for ages.

I actually am of the belief that many conversations are just better left for in person, grab a friend and go to starbucks or whatever. Another thing that I think is always interesting is that arguments almost never end up changing someones mind. In fact if you put someone into defensive position, whether its online or in person chances are all you did was push them further away from seeing your point of view, or even having them try to understand your point of view.

Anyways this is just the ramblings of a crazy person heh, sorry you missed the beat down that was the 1st quarter.

 

There's a long held paradigm in Group theory and that's that feedback must be acceptable to the intended audience else it's a waste of energy. Any good business knows this.

 

I was with ya, until you admitted it caused you to miss the first quarter. Priorities should not be arguing on social media over a blazers game!!!!

Did you record it at least?

 

I didn't have time. The "you're disrespecting my son by wanting the country to pay him" blindsided me completely.

 

My advice ….get rid of Facebook as soon as possible..people often have high intellectual ideas and standards but low emotional IQs in my view....I think it goes back to the days of Monarchy...you're either a noble invited to court or you're hungry peasant...to be invited to court you must entertain the King. This new world order confuses folks still quite a bit. Most of it is just people identifying as "nobles" holding their noses up to those smelly peasants...sucks but I just don't think we've changed all that much nor will in my lifetime. There has never been nor ever will be an even playing field ...sucks but it is what it is.

 

I was hoping to win the lottery, build a community center for my area, put a few people through college and disappear mysteriously, starting over somewhere far away ....

 

Unfortunately, at least with people I encounter, that seems to be becoming more and more the norm. A couple of times recently she's posted opinions on her own wall, then followed it up with statuses telling people not to comment on her statuses if they don't agree with her, because they aren't going to change her mind, and they should just defriend her if they don't like what they say.

Which made it all the more stupefying that she commented on something I posted on my wall and told me I should just drop the subject because I wasn't going to change her mind.

 

She's posted a lot of political stuff since the last election, almost exclusively warning about socialism. I don't respond to her; I generally avoid posting about politics and even am careful about things that could be taken down a political path.

This is twice now she's argued something I posted on my page. The last one was about a week ago; I posted asking the rationale of having healthcare tied to your job. Seemed to me that it cut people's freedom to leave a job you don't like because you would lose coverage. She said she thought it was the way to go because it gave people more power in their coverage as group buyers. My response was "OK, so that sounds almost like unionization, but couldn't you achieve the same thing by banding together people with common interests or even have communities purchase healthcare ... people are less likely to want to move than to want to change a job." She got fixated on hating unions and it was a waste of money and she knows more about healthcare than I do.

 

I had a guy unfriend me a couple of months back. Anything I would post that had any even remotely socio-economic tilt to it, he would come in and post anti-Trump stuff. I had told him privately I would like him not to do that; that while I don't believe Trump is best for the country, I don't want my statuses to turn into crap-throwing contests because he would make the first comment and it would say something about "Trumpanzees." I said do what you want on your own social media, but please respect mine, which is more about trying to address problems while avoiding this team sports attitude. That coming in and immediately inciting exchanges of insults steps all over my status. He kept doing it and finally I told him publicly to stop, so he messaged me and said he was defriending me for saying that to him in front of everyone. I said I was sorry he felt that way, but he essentially was coming into my house and crapping all over the living room, so, if he felt he needed to leave, I wouldn't fight to keep him.

It's not hard for me to give people a little leeway in their posting and, I think, to respect their views and their "turf." So many people these days don't seem to want to make an attempt to avoid conflict. In fact, they seem to seek it. They brag about how they "say whatever they think." I always considered that a bit of a weakness, a lack of self-control. I understand being honest and sticking to your guns ... I quit a management job on a matter of principle ... but hammering people, even with the truth, doesn't seem to me to be anything to be proud of MOST of the time.

 

One more quick story. My mother passed away five years ago. It brought her nieces back into my orbit. They invited me to Thanksgiving dinner six months after my mum's death.

So I get there, bringing some food, and we sit and talk. They begin to want to discuss politics. They are more conservative than I. I tell them I don't think this really is the occasion to discuss that, but, it's their house, I'm just not comfortable with it.

I try to defend my POV for a half-hour, keeping it to ideology and not painting with a broad brush, but my one cousin keeps pushing the envelope and her sister keeps drinking. Two more times I tell them I really don't think these are good topics for a holiday get-together.

Finally, my cousin talks about this big left-wing conspiracy is ruining our country yada yada yada. I told them I heard enough. I picked up my coat, I walked to the door, I turned and told them I don't fight for fighting's sake, and I left, and we haven't talked since.