It’s been a tumultuous year that has seen me suit up daily for insipid, Sisyphean ideological battles on Facebook. Thankfully, it has calmed down
considerably since the beloved and prodigiously dull duo of Mitt Romney and
Paul Ryan took second place to the Harvard Zombie and his pet snapping turtle. None of this is really important though. Constitutional republics come and go but
Facebook friends are forever.
Over the last few months I’ve noticed people disappearing from my
news feed. It will usually happen that the comment of an ex-friend will appear
on the status update of a current friend. I’ll look at the name and think, who
is that person? Weren’t we friends? And I’ll be pretty sure we were, even if
I’ve never been quite sure who they are. What happened? I wonder if it’s
a glitch with Facebook. You know, a buggy thing. Like, it has nothing to do
with the fact that every time he posted a picture of Willy Wonka with some
scurrilous caption fulminating some
moronic polemic, I pounced like a puma on a butterfly. And then
the light bulb went off. Or on. Or…whatever. I had an epiphany. Friends were de-Friending me for political reasons. Passionately liberal Friends were taking exception to my conservative views and expressing their
disapproval with an effete, though unequivocal, gesture: by unceremoniously cutting me off from the effulgent riches of their status updates.
Some people might be surprised to learn that Nashville is a
liberal city. Tennessee’s 5th Congressional district, which has included
Nashville and Davidson County since 1951, has never had a Republican
representative. And though a Democrat has won Tennessee in a presidential election only four times since 1952 (each time a
southerner), the capital city has remained safely liberal. If the city as a
whole leans liberal then the artists, songwriters, musicians, etc who give Nashville its identity, are the keepers of the flame. In other
words, the music scene is made up of passionate, well-meaning people who have
no idea what they’re talking about.
It is no secret
that I am pathologically unable to avoid those futile skirmishes where nothing
is accomplished but hurt feelings. It may account for the monstrous
success I continue to defer. But seriously, who wants to hang around with a
bunch of people who think alike? I might be an unrepentant partisan but I get along with everyone. I always have. It might be
the result of my upbringing—being the youngest of six children in a nutty
Irish-Catholic family. You can drop me in almost any social situation and I can
hang. When I was a young construction worker I got along swimmingly with the
felons I worked along side. And on those occasions when I’ve been seated next
to a surgeon, a lawyer, an engineer, a professional oboist, or anyone whose accomplishments might, to an under-achiever, seem intimidating, I
am always calm and personable. I carry myself with humility and confidence and
we are both thus enriched. Why then do I seem to offend people on Facebook with
such wicked consistency? I’ll tell you why.
Even the felons I’ve worked with had the good grace and first
grade manners not to say things that are wantonly insulting. It’s a game we
play in face-to-face social interactions--keep your opinions innocuous enough
so that no one is quite sure what you're talking about. Why then do people,
when freed from the constraints of traditional social decorum, write things
that in the real world would likely get them punched in the face? Should I feel
bad when I respond to a terrifically dumb ad hominem by someone with the policy
acumen of a wheelbarrow with something sardonic and condescending (and funny!)?
Do they have it coming? Am I no better than them? What am I to do when my efforts to discuss a topic seriously are met with
typically flaccid demagoguery? The harder I've tried to proffer a
direct, organized, non-demagogic conservative position on some feeble Facebook
thread, the more I've been left feeling empty and diminished, as if I’ve been explaining Australian Rules Football to my cat.
Let's get something straight. It’s not that the liberals I know are dumb. Not at
all. (Although I should clarify that some of the dumbest people I’ve ever
encountered were attracted to liberalism because, let’s face it, what it lack’s
in empirically supportable policy positions it makes up for with a superior promotions
and packaging department.) The real problem seems to be that liberals really hate conservatives. They can’t
stand to occupy the same space, breath the same air, or share the same
internet with conservatives. I think
this is a real shame. I’ve never considered a liberal unworthy of my friendship
simply because he doesn’t understand the correlation between lower capital
gains rates and higher capital gains revenue. I don’t base my friendships on
frivolities. At least not political frivolities.
Anyway. The
liberals are winning! You’d think they’d be more gracious. And, let’s be
honest, it’s not like they’re fielding a Dream Team. I think future
generations are as likely to marvel that the Democrats were able to
give us a worse President than Jimmy Carter as they are to marvel at how the
Republicans were able to lose to him. Be nice liberals. We don't have to be Friends, but let's not be enemies.
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