"Today someone got a life changing phone call that they have a terminal illness. Today a hero's famliy was notified that their soldier made the ultimate sacrifice. Today a lot of people will hear horrible news, so lets be reminded, we DO NOT have the right to complain about our life or our crummy day. Things are far worse for many. So stop complaining, we have it good. These "bad" days for us, others would die to have."
Um, yeah. Right now, I'm not terribly pleased with my in-laws anyway. This little blurb almost made me want to respond that I hope she never has a bad thing happen to her, because my response will be "well, you don't have a terminal illness" or if she does, it will be "well, you didn't make the ultimate sacrifice" followed by "quit your bitchin'." Really? Yes, perspective is good. But we all have the right to complain, because venting is a useful stress reliever. If you don't want to listen, then get some friends who don't whine about every little twinge or slight misfortune.
The second one came from a friend's stepbrother, and is political. Now, I belong to a political discussion group on Facebook, and sometimes people say some really outrageously biased stuff. I don't really know the people in the discussion group - except for a couple people from my high school - so I don't take it personally. But I grew up with my friend, her sister, and her stepbrother. We came from a middle class neighborhood in a city full of liberals. So, I find it incredibly confusing that for some reason they all became raging conservatives. I feel that middle class Americans who espouse the so-called conservative point of view are acting in direct contrast to their own best interests. But, whatever. Everyone's entitled to their beliefs, and I agree that smaller government is good. I don't want to restrict gun ownership either. The bad guys always find guns if they want them - the rest of us might as well have the same access. However, when you share information that is patently untrue, it irks me.
Hate to tell you, Mr. Conservative Obama Hater, but Obama really has no control over the gas prices. It's the market that controls the gas prices. Pick on the speculators, instead of the legislators. Also, maybe I should hook you up with the aforementioned relative - you oughta stop whining about gas prices, as prices in Europe have been in excess of $5/gallon for over 15 years.
Yep, I'm probably just irritable. Or maybe it's time to take a break and become a Luddite for a while. Maybe I should reinstate the baked goods and candy that I gave up for Lent and turn off the computer instead.
I'm not really missing FB especially with the political posts amping up. ; )
ReplyDeleteI wondered that about the blame on gas prices too. Funny how differently people see thing isn't it?
Man, I am not a fan (love to hate) people who think that being 'friended' is an invitation to lecture me about things that rational people consider poor conversation (religion, religion, religion and politics, just to name four). My cousin's wife just posted a quote from Rick Santorum tonight. I was reading it aloud to my husband and ... it was so inane that we assumed they were her thoughts until we got the end and saw the attribution. He was lecturing about the foundational principles of America and quoting from the Declaration of Independance ... "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator ..." and he was using the fact that the framer's referenced a 'creator' to justify religious discrimination. It wasn't my account and I would never do this, but I was so badly itching to write ... ALL of us are equal? Do you mean that? Or do you mean ALL people who agree with you are equal? She's very religious and she talks down to the rest of us constantly ... I doubt she would be able to stomach the idea that an athiest is her equal. And yet ... to ME ... that is THE foundational principle. The one that protects both of us. ANYhoo. It's funny to observe my own reactions to her. Actually her naivete and her enthusiasm are kind of ??? hmmm ... endearing if you ignore the rest of it and kind let your focus blur. LOL. If she only knew how I swear at her on the screen. I think she takes silence as agreement. That kind of cracks me up.
ReplyDeleteThis is just to say ... yeah. FB is TMI and has ruined my ability to take certain people seriously who otherwise would have remained ... more neutral in my regard. Very amusing most of the time. And YAYyuh. WTF on the people we grew up with going raging conservative? Wow. Just WOW.
Pale! You're reading my mind again! I was just thinking about how people who don't believe that "life" begins at fertilization should have equal rights under the law, making all these personhood amendments and abortion debates null. Ah well, it's a logical argument, so is therefore invalid, I suppose.
DeleteHere in Sweden we pay 9 dollars a gallon! And no one is blaming the government. It's seen as a reasonable amount to pay, and you just use public transportation more and plan your trips better.
ReplyDeleteWell I am ALWAYS at LEAST that irritable, so my surprise is more over how you contain your irritability to the extent that you do! My day is full of this kind of rubbish- ignorance, incompetence, idiocy. And not just on the internet! Hope tomorrow is more soothing to your soul, and mine.
ReplyDeleteOh, politics... What bugs the heck out of me right now is that in my home country, where we had half a century of communism, people are now brainwashed by the media (owned by former communists, duh) and say the current president is a dictator. And it's not the younger who have no recollection of what a true dictator was, no, it's the elderly, my parents' generation, who lived it through and through... And for once we have a president who finally has done something and has some backbone! Politics - damned if you get involved, damned if you don't.
ReplyDeleteAs for gas prices - they should spend a week in a European suburbia, where you need a car, and the gallon is somewhere around 8-9 USD (1l is 1.7 eur today, 1 gallon is 3.8 l, go have fun with maths). And if your new car only needs super unleaded, it gets even pricier. And everything here is more expensive, food, housing, public transport, etc. And if they are about to spew the 'salaries are also higher', kick them in the shins for me. Hard.
So, I guess it's just you the irritable one. And apparently me. The internet is just fine. :-)
Please do something about the word verification... It's a pain and apparently it is not stopping spams. I suppose it's because of your popular famous ad sense status. :-p
OK, word verification should be gone...
DeleteI'm glad we can be irritable together!
LOL....I usually stay away from FB commentaries on a) religion and b) politics. Usually, coz the other person is so confident of his/her view that it is useless to say anything to the contrary.
ReplyDeleteI think you should reinstate the candy atleast!
Bah. Annoying. I don't have a lot of FB friends. And most of them don't post on their walls anyway. When I read about FB drama, I'm glad that I don't have to deal with it!
ReplyDeleteAh, the drama is all of my own creation. The stupidity is theirs. I rarely post anything on my wall - and certainly never anything "inspirational!"
DeleteI am a terrible person, because I would screenshot that FB comment and just wait for her to complain and then *pow*! If she had phrased it a little differently, it wouldn't have been so annoying, but really, the capitalized part just makes my teeth clench. I don't do the FB, so I miss a lot of funny things but thank goodness I can avoid a bunch of infuriating things :)
ReplyDeleteRemember the days when common sense used to be uh, common? :P Or was it ever truly common? Hard to say and perhaps something to mull over when I'm feeling better, lol.
ReplyDeleteI've become a tad obsessed with someone on twitter. She is the wife of an old friend (I have never met her but he constantly retweets her) and her views are slightly more right-wing than most Nazis could get away with. I get so angry with her blatherings about how drug addicts shouldn't be entitled to treatment because it is their fault that I find myself reading her feed, getting more and more incensed (it is like pressing on a bruise) until the husband has to physically remove my phone off me for its own safety. Which is a long way of saying, I get you!
ReplyDeleteI would like to purchase a copy of Candide for your husband's relative. Didn't Voltaire already cover the uselessness of that argument by pointing out the inverse?
ReplyDeleteHahahahaha! Candide! Voltaire! You're so funny! Maybe you could write a...more accessible version for Entertainment Weekly, because that's about as close as most of my in-laws get to reading.
DeleteI used to see these kinds of FB posts in my feed all the time and I'd spend a part of that day being irritated or sad or anxious, which my husband could not understand at all because he was all "just don't let that stuff get to you." You shush, Harv.
ReplyDeleteI finally realized I could block these people's status updates and man, what a difference it's made in my day. Before, I unfriended a few of these people, but I did get caught once and a text confrontation followed.
I'm snickering about you and Mel and Voltaire and Entertainment Weekly.
ReplyDeleteLuddism sounds quite appealing.
Ironic, given how I'm communicating with you.
Funny! You are right about the gas prices! I just translated liters of petrol to gallons of gas. In England right now we are at $6.50. AAAAA!!! I know it was expencive but i didn't realize how bad it was!
ReplyDelete