I’ve been struggling a lot lately, trying to sort out the upcoming election, indeed the future. We have a lot of problems, big problems and real problems. And the first thing that needs to happen, is we need to come together. Regardless of who wins, we need to support them as President 100%. When we disagree with them, we need to let them know so, but we do not have to declare war on whatever it is they have been doing.
I’ve been struggling for some time now trying to write up something that wraps up my concerns. There are just too many of them. So I think the way I am going to go, is to just start a Things that Bug Me list. I will just post a short piece describing the issue, any reader is invited to post a short response here. I will take that and the original section from here, and make them a new post, assign a new tag so we can track it, and it will be there for any and all to comment on.
Only one rule, but it is an important one, is that everyone posting needs to play nice. And that leads me to my first Thing That Bugs Me: In media, politics, the internet, our society in general, we are way to fast to allow disagreement to get to the emotional point. We are going to be talking about issues that will raise us very close to an emotional state simply by their mention. I’ll give you one for me – men abusing women, and the reverse though it is relatively uncommon. That is a hot button with me for personal reasons, I have seen the results of it up close and personal.
Today, it seems to me that about any controversial issue that comes up is very quickly elevated to the emotional state. How many ‘news’ shows do you see where they have 2 people from each side of the debate and the 4 of them just go at each other, talking over each other, raising voices, sigh. It almost seems like good sport to see how close they can push someone to loosing their temper. Good TV I guess, gets more viewers when they can add drama.
In my humble opinion, we don’t have time for that crap. Our problems are too many, too large, and too urgent to allow us the luxury of playing emotional warfare. Emotion and good judgment do not work well together, they work against each other. First by clouding our judgement, and second, often times, by distracting us with side issues. We don’t need arguing, we need debates. Let’s debate the issues, find and post the facts, defend our opinions. When the emotion begins swelling up, and it will, recognize it and deal with it. Comments will be moderated, and our decisions are final. Anger or excessively provocative language will not be allowed.
So ends the first Thing That Bugs Me. Too much angry emotion. Let me know if you want me to start a new post with that so we can comment on it.
