I'm simply amazed.
Should I be? No. Because not only has Facebook shown me the ugliest side of humanity it has shown me the ugliest side of politics I thought I subscribed to. I can honestly say I have lost faith in the 'Liberal Masses.' I've spent the past 12 months sparring and ranting almost on a daily basis with those whom I would generally consider 'on the other side of the fence' politically... usually comforted at the end of the day with an assumption: people on my side of the spectrum aren't as dismissive, aren't as 'easily duped,' aren't as single-minded or lead down the garden path. I was wrong. And I'll admit, it was hubris, plain and simple. We always want to think 'our kind' infallible.
The details don't matter, suffice it to say that it all started with a posting from a group I had subscribed to months and months ago... a group that has a heavy left-leaning bent to everything they post. Some things are funny, some things are sad, others make you instantly take notice and say, 'WHAT!?” This was one of those times when my attention immediately had my knees jerking under my desk. What should have tipped me off immediately was the fact that what was being reported about so-and-so saying something was so inane, so ridiculous I couldn't believe anyone would in all seriousness print it. These days I've gotten into the habit of drilling down to the original of ANY article as blog posts and re-postings tend to add an extra layer of spin along the way. The entire time I kept thinking, “My GOD, did this reporter actually SAY that?” In the end, the words were there. All of them, exactly as they had appeared in the fury-bating, attention-grabbing post that caught my eye minutes before... but there were in fact more. And what I instantly realized was that I'd been duped into flying off the handle. The author wasn't actually proposing anything of the sort. She was making a 'modest proposal' of sorts. Yeah, ever hear of satirical reference? I know we are surrounded by it all the time these days, it's too bad so many people (it seems) can't even recognize it when it's smacking them in the face.
What actually made my jaw drop however were the comments by 98% of the respondents to the flame-bating post. It had done its job, and then some. The pitch forks and torches were as far as the eye could see. It seemed no one had the interest, nor the patience to actually take the time... the time to even read the SINGLE PARAGRAPH that was edited down to only report what was SURE to elicit anger and outrage. This was a textbook instance of deliberately removing context. And no one cared. After pointing out the fact that the posters had taken things out of context, I myself was basically told, “Who has time to read it? Why bother?” Yeah... why bother checking to see if anything is true or not, especially when taking the time to respond and make wild statements yourself!? Who has time for that?
In the end it doesn't really matter. It's just another news article about a hot-button issue that will be forgotten. The author doesn't care that intellectually careless people are sending her hate mail, nor does the publication give a damn if a handful of knee-jerk liberals are up in arms about something. Just another day at the office. I however would feel much better if those knee-jerk liberals were up in arms about something for the right reasons. It's like watching your friends do something incredibly stupid when they are drunk... you might try to step in and warn them, but they aren't having it... and you watch them go down in flames, spectacularly.
Stupid. It just 'is' and there's no accounting for it.
People are constantly saying, especially online “Why can't people just discuss things?” People don't want to discuss things. They want to act out and get on with their lives. Perhaps THIS could be one of the many contributing factors to why we have and will continue to have incidents of public violence like Newtown, Aurora, Ft. Hood....
It doesn't matter that I generally don't agree with this reporter's work. It shouldn't. The message doesn't matter in this case. The fact that the message was so GROSSLY perverted to direct a torrent of anger in ANY direction is what sickens me. Maybe I'm sick because I know at some level I'm guilty of being lead along at times just like all these people were. And in the end I'm not disgusted with them, I'm disgusted with myself.
