I posted this on Facebook. I am probably being unfriended or dismissed as a libtard as I repost here. I wrote this after reading two posts by other folks. I copied part of their post and put it in the google search bar and though they did not say so on their post – their words did not come from them. The only clue was that at the bottom of their post were the words “copy and paste if you agree”  Interesting enough, one person who had copies and pasted and shared something that they did not write actually “liked” my post…

The funny thing is, I actually consider myself more of a conservative at last by my understanding of what it means to be conservative. I also believe in helping others. I believe in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. I pay taxes and I am blessed that I can afford health insurance (barely).

I did not like ANY of our candidates this year. I like how people are reacting to the result even less. Name calling and anger on both sides. I believe in peaceful protesting. I do NOT believe in indiscriminate destruction of property just because you are mad partially because it is wrong and partially because that is no way to change anyone’s mind.

I believe this country being founded by immigrants, should be willing to shelter those who are in harms way from other countries. I do not believe in a permanent free ride.

I believe that we live in an age where information is free and prolific and takes very little effort to find. It does take a little more effort than simply copying and pasting. Facebook has turned into the virtual version of what we used to call supermarket rags – those papers that you would see at the checkout with “shocking” headlines and celebrity gossip and I find it frustrating and insulting that the contents of these sketchy websites are being shared and resider as though they are reputable sources of news. Some contain tiny bits of truth amid inflammatory language and sometimes out and out lies.

My first thought was to just start unfriending people so I would see this dreck that gets me wound up. For the moment I am instead, writing and commenting and hoping that people will start to actually read what they are sharing and maybe even research where it came from; put some thought into the agenda of the original source.

I recently read a post on Facebook that began like this: : “I’m going to let all you upset Hillary supporters in on a little secret. To those of you questioning now how you will ever be able to raise a child in a world full of hate and bigotry, saying this election has provided even a further wedge in our nations divide, etc. Donald J. Trump will not come into your home, and teach your children, real values and morals, You will”

This text came (as far as I can tell) from Buzzfeed which is a click bait site that makes money off adds as we all click there and read sketchy “news” articles that may or may not be plagiarized or contain pieces of truth mingled with things made up with the purpose of getting us all to click there. They concentrate on social media sites like Facebook and twitter. They play on our anger, fear, and voyeurism and they focus on making posts go viral – not out of any agenda other than to make money from ads. That’s it. They do not care about your race, gender, religion, politics or anything else about you other than your ability to click and share so someone else will click and share and so on and so on.

I will not from this moment on take another stupid Facebook quiz or do anything else to support this behavior. There are a lot of websites that do the same and much of what I have read on the internet the last few days came from those kind of sites. If you want to know more about this website here is a wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuzzFeed

We all have the freedom and capability to post our opinions. This is mine. I recently came upon the phrase “consensus reality”. This basically means that a group of people adopt a world reality because they all see it that way. This is not inherently a bad thing. In the midst of a horrible event the reality can change because there is a consensus of hope. Unfortunately the opposite is also true. A happy or uplifting event can change because of a bad perception. If who we are is what we click and share we have created a consensus reality that we are mostly angry/whiny contentious, snowflake, bigoted, brainless, privileged, whatever. Choose your club.

Four years ago Republicans were crying that our country is ruined. Their candidate lost the election and they were certain we were going to hell in a hand basket. The same group is now laughing and calling democrats entitled whiny babies. Democrats are saying all Republicans are all privileged and bigots and have no compassion.

Politics is a very good example of consensus reality. A politician wants to create a consensus that he or she is the answer to all of our problems. It doesn’t matter that the reality is that the problems are complex and will not be solved the day after the election. They don’t care if you get angry with your neighbor for how they vote. They just want to WIN (the political equivalent of click and share).

When my kids were small we signed them up for tee ball. What a fun experience. Aside from teaching basic skills like running, throwing, catching and hitting the ball, a difficult lesson to teach them was that they should not all run to the ball. They had to be taught team work. Each person had a place on the field and they each were part of a process that if they learned to work together, allowing each person to do their part, they could attain their goal.

Remember the old game where you whispered something in someone’s ear and it was passed around a circle and at the end the last person had to ay what they were told and often it bore little resemblance to the original message? Did you trust the person who whispered to you? The person who whispered to them?

What will you whisper? What will you click and share? Who will make money off your anger?

We all need to go take tee ball lessons.