It’s President’s day. I don’t know where to begin about the fact that it is President’s day. What to say, right? Let me start with my recent Facebook post:
“Yesterday I was mocked. Kind of unbelievable, but not unexpected. A simple question of mine was, apparently, offensive enough to warrant such a response. Let me say, for the record, if your political posture is such that it requires you to knock me down (which didn’t happen) with mockery, I’m not impressed with you, your opinion, or the person you support.
Grow up, learn how to have a civil conversation, and then we can revisit the matter at hand.
I am a flawed human admitting my mistakes every day. This is not to say I am perfect – far from the fringes of perfection. We can have vast differences in matters regarding politics. But, I will tolerate only so much of this hatred and divisiveness … Where ARE we? Have we lost the ability to meet somewhere in a place called kind, pleasant, and meaningful where friends pull up chairs to talk with one another? As I posted below in a reply, “Dirty conversational air floating around these days making it so hard to breathe normally anymore” …”
Here are some of the wonderful comments that followed:
Though we agree to disagree everyone is entitled to their own opinions(even though mine is right). Just kidding. 😂😂😂 Hold on to your own beliefs and no one is able to take them from you my friend!😘 – CH
It will only get worse from here on. But to change it will take an enormous effort by us to keep positive no matter what. – MF
Dang, sorry it went that way. Hopefully there will be growing tiredness with dissension and we will more and more seek common ground. – KE
Remember that those who hate really only hate themselves. But they have to deflect that hatred on others because they lack the ability to effect a change or accept responsibility for their own actions. – BP
Our glorious earth spins about 1,000 miles per hour. We don’t feel this motion because the speed is constant. If we lived on a herky-jerky ball of rock instead of an enormous, smooth moving river stone floating through space, “feel it we would” in Yoda speak. So fortunate are we to colonize a still, calm world … well, the perception of such from space, anyway.. Did I mention today is President’s day?
Our collective heads are spinning faster than 1,000 miles per hour. We feel it because the motion isn’t constant. It’s one side pulling against the other in an adult playground game of who-can-be-the-less-adult tug of war. We expect to see a principal – an overseer of rules – monitoring activity over near the edge of the grass, but notice no one. Who we see are all the elected from an elementary school of privilege where we, the uninvited, must sit idly by and watch through a fence erected through years of our indifference.
This is where we choose to take our stand these days and I don’t see it improving. Shouting through the holes in the fence, but not at the ones who deserve the wrath. We go to social media .. and yell at each other, apparently. I say we, politely so, because I will never, ever call out someone personally. Above is as close as I will ever come to a personal attack on anyone. That was a bad day for the other gentleman – I am glad to grant him a “bad day”.
Facebook, especially, is full of you-are-wrong-and-I am-right political memes, commentaries, opinions, jokes, stats, pictures, and insults. More friends are lost than found. This isn’t the fault of Facebook. Mark Zukerberg invented a format for us to share ideas, loves, and dog pictures. Sure, he’s made a-gazillion dollars and probably has his political leanings – agree with or not – however, he has no culpability in our decisions to click the “post now” or “like” thumb icons.
We stand in solidarity behind the fence, yet argue with each other. What good is it to stand in the mud outside a wire fence, screaming insults among ourselves, when imps are playing unending, monotonous, irresponsible, rather expensive games on a field tilted, unfortunately for all of us, in their financial favor?
Yet, we have this day, President’s Day. A day set aside to honor George Washington’s birthday. The day became known as Presidents Day when it became part of the 1971 Uniform Monday Holiday Act. Pretty much an act to give federal employees a three day weekend. Way to go, George! Up to Me? Just give all guys named George the day off, and all the residents in the state of Washington, too.
The Presidency. Just don’t see us celebrating that office the way we used to, regardless who is sitting in that beautiful oval room. There will always be a narrow, focused segment of our wonderful fence claspers heaping unfounded praises upon the person duly elected to this great honor. As well, detractors dug in a few feet away, holding on just as tight, will immediately dispell those claims of praise and establish their own imaginary parameters of truth.
This is where we are. We can do better. I say let’s shut down the school. That way the playground swings, teeter-totter, and tug rope are all ka-put. No more games. No more fences. All of us on the same level, less-expensive playing field where we play by the same rules. We can learn how to have winners and losers again. Rich people and poor people (who can be cared for and looked after) hugging each other with no animosity or disdain. We can be less angry with each other and quit trying to decide who always right or wrong.
I decided recently that I like coconut and scallops. Way off topic; however, if I can do that, President’s day, 2020 can go a lot smoother for all of us if we decide to calm down a bit from our need to be right all the time politically. The earth will still spin. We won’t feel a thing because it is constant … as our calm spirit should be all the time.
DougHugs 