Tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.
-James Agate
Yes, in the coming year … especially this coming year … we should be more tolerant of fools. But that does not mean we should be friends with them on social media! My number one resolution for 2016 is to de-friend any and all Facebook amigos who think Barack Obama has been nothing short of a second Black Death (plague) or think Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
We’ve all experienced this … a college buddy, with whom you haven’t talked politics in years, starts posting right wing articles; an old girlfriend shares posts depicting our president as a circus monkey; a casual friend starts aping Fox talking points.
Up until now, I’ve simply ignored such nonsense and just scrolled down to the next post. Not anymore. Why should I be subjected to such crap? Who are these people to me anyway?
Of course when it comes to relatives, it gets a bit dicier. It is hard to de-friend a brother, a cousin or an in-law. But you’ve known about their political leanings for a long time. You also know trying to reason with them at holiday dinners is just an exercise in futility. So just chill.
As the saying goes, you can choose your friends but not your family.
We will be choosing a new president in 2016. Let’s also choose to loose those Facebook “friends” with obviously closed minds.
And anyway, Facebook should be what it was meant to be: a place where family photos are exchanged and not a political forum.
Image courtesy of Anoop Krishnan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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