When Liberals And Conservatives Try To Get Along On Facebook

A 40+ year friend of mine (MD) tried to broker some sort of truce on his Facebook profile between the warring factions – liberals and conservatives – religious and non-religious – he calls “friends.”

The post started innocently enough with my friend posting:

I’m feeling a tad belligerent this morning. This is a rant and a polite request. I’m no longer in the mood for blatant stupidity. If you feel like posting homophobic rants, remove me. If you have decided to use words like but, not limited to “rethuglicans”, “libtards”, “nazi’s” *not in the context of “grammar nazi” * or any of that other divisive horseshit, remove me. If you want to assert your “religious freedoms” at the detriment of others, remove me.

You are entirely welcome to have views that are different than mine. You are completely free to CIVILLY disagree with me. You are encouraged to engage me in reasoned debate.
I don’t want to be surrounded with people that have the same views. I can not learn from that. What I am asking for, odd considering the tone of this post, is to not have to deal with moronic, knee-jerk attacks against people.*sigh*…y’all have a nice day

This was followed up by the following friendly clarification and exchange.

MD: Yeah, this means I don’t want to see anyone bashing anyone else’s faith. I have Christian, Jewish, and Pagan friends. I respect all y’all’s right to your individual faith. One of my dearest friends is gay. I will always stand up for her to live her life without being denied the same rights that I demand for myself. *note to self, 293. wonder if it will drop? *

SK: I suggest ignoring posts you don’t like . Some people have firm beliefs different than yours and pester facebook with their own rants supporting their beliefs. Or casually delete them verses demanding they follow your protocol for free speech in a politically correct way. It just takes away your stress and you see what you want from people you want to talk to.

MD: I do that, too. *grins* Just seeing if I can’t get them to do it for me. *grins again*

However, shortly thereafter things degraded quickly. And for me the most interesting part of observing this online brawl was noting how the posts quickly degraded from full statements to short bursts and insults, often times without one party not waiting for a response before posting again.

Last time I checked the post it was still there, but then again – it is 3am on a Sunday morning on the east coast and likely my friend has not seen the degradation of his well-intentioned post.

Any of you want to guess as to who, if anyone gets deleted from his friends’ list?

Without further ado, we present to you the online scuffle….

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