Yesterday was a rough day as far as my Facebook account goes. Like most all of you know, I am a Democrat who advocates for all of our candidates although some more than others. But what happened yesterday was a demonstrable shift in how my friends on my Facebook page look at this coming election in 2016. Instead of us debating the issues that our two front running candidates are forwarding we were showing how divided we were based on whether we will vote for our eventual democratic nominee. On the one hand there are those who say that our far left socialist democratic candidate will cause us to lose the election because they say his policies go too far left so they are not going to vote for him regardless if he is the nominee. And on the other hand is our more moderate democratic candidate who many on the left say they will not vote for because they deem her more like a Republican. Both extreme sides fail to see that neither of these candidates is too far left or too far right. They both are democrats who fall to being more or less liberal than the other. So some of these folks who have been on my Facebook friends list for many years are showing themselves and I chose not to have them around on my page any longer since they have stated they will not vote for the democratic nominee if it isn't there preferred candidate. So I had one of these folks confront me and tell me that I am a bully for unfriending them because they will not vote for the eventual nominee if it isn't their eventual nominee. I have been plain and open about my support for our democratic party and I prefer not to have people on my Facebook page who lobby against what I feel so passionate about. I was told I wasn't being fair to deny them their dissenting voice. Well, I am not taking their dissenting voice away, I am exercising my right to control the content of my page, not theirs. Just like they could have easily unfriended me for my views if they were not in alignment with their own. Freedom of speech works both ways and I choose not to hear the voice of those who will not support the eventual nominee of our democratic party. Simple.
2 comments:
Although a lifetime Democrat, I have voted GOP years ago for Ike. He was the best man going. But it brings up a thread I have been wanting to talk about. We have a two party system as a system of checks and balances just as the constitution denotes a system of three branches of government. But to operate successfully, the parties have to maintain a viable and reasonable platform. One keeps the other honest if possible. As democrats, to be constantly at war with the opposing party, is self defeating. To be in competition for a leadership role in governing a large populous nation is a reasonable quest. However to be in search of the demise of the GOP would lead to putting the Democratics in such a dominant position that they would eventually be guilty of the same excesses. The structure of both parties is in need of major change. Currently, leadership in each house dictates to great extent how the rank and file deal with legislation, from committe room to voting floor. It's not hard to track lock step votes on important measures. New faces appear in the house but they seem intimidated from exercising their fresh rationality into their new office. Until they strike out with new reason and imagination and convince their base of the same, we are in for a long period of the same. I don't look at the folding of the opposition party as a victory. I think we need the White House at a time like this, but we also need the balance of a viable opposition.
That doesn't necessarily mean a Republican party as an opposition. The Green party could well become the next major party to offset the Democratic party. I would never keep a Republican party around that sows so much negativity and hatred just for the sake of having a balancing party.
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