I was thinking about Bill’s analogy with the rocket and the command module and dumping dead weight. I am accepting of anyone with any political beliefs, from the Bernie loving socialist to the Evangelical social conservatives. It’s always been the left who unfriends and stops communication with people they politically disagree with.
But it occurs to me over the past few days that this is beyond political disagreement. Just tonight, I un-friended two people on Facebook who I have known for a combined 40 years, and there may be more to come. Frankly, I haven’t had any serious interaction with them in some time, they live in areas of the country very far from me. Like I said, I can tolerate people with different opinions than me. But what I will have no tolerance for is for people who hold MY differing opinions against me personally. The “infractions” that warranted my splitting up with these two gentlemen were very tasteless “Aww the bad orange man is out of there” posts. In times like this, we must surround our selves with positivity.
Most of my friends and family have been very accepting of me since my “coming out” and we’ve had great and respectful discussions. To contrast, a former student of mine, a die-hard Bernie Bro, stays on the list. Why? Because I’ve never seen him make any seriously anti-Trump posts. He keeps things positive and we’ve had mature and fruitful discussions and even found common ground, e.g. on getting money out of politics and government and corporations being “in bed” with each other. He’s certainly no Biden fan. He has principles and we can debate, disagree and still be friends.
I’d like to say that it pains me to sever relations with those other people. But honestly, I not only feel not the slightest bit of remorse or nostalgia, I wonder why I didn’t sever ties long ago.
Now is not the time for sentimentality. The days of bipartisanship are over. As Bill Whittle said, we can’t hold on to dead weight any more. I will always maintain friendships with people with whom I can agree to disagree, but if a person is going to display themselves as immature or unwilling to even listen to reason, they’ve got to go. And there are always replacements out there. Whether I’ve known them for 2 months or 2 decades no longer matters, it’s good riddance. To quote Walder Frey from “Game of Thrones” when Catelyn Stark threatened to murder his wife, he dryly and callously replied, “I’ll find another.” Maybe that sounds cold, but it’s something I have to do. I need to surround myself with positive people.
At this point, it’s their loss. They made the choice, not me. I’m done wrestling with the proverbial pigs. And face it, I’ve never been the touchy-feely type anyway.
8 replies on “What this Friends List Needs Alfrid is… A Good Purge”
Wise words. Wasn’t it Napoleon that was slowly poisoned by his wallpaper? Time for some redecorating.
excellent post. I think your sentiments and actions will be writ large across the nation as well, as it should be.
you know, you seem like a hell of a guy…so if you’re anywhere near NJ (yeah, I know), hey get in touch I’d like to be a new and better replacement friend…
I just joined BW after his impassioned video. I am going through the same process with my friends list. I am even contemplating leaving Facebook all together. Thank you for sharing.
I have never been on Facebook or Twitter, and have no intention of ever being there. I’m am fond of using the snarky line “I’m not social enough for social media” as an excuse, but really an excuse is all it is.
For one, I refuse to involve myself in the minutiae of everyday life of thousands or tens of thousands of people I don’t know and never will. Reading and commenting on a few blogs puts me into that with dozens, possibly over a hundred, and that’s about my limit. I’m seriously considering leaving Quora, because it’s stress testing my diplomacy skills more than I’m willing to put up with.
But the main thing is when people started suffering at work for what they had said on FB or Twitter. My personal time is my own, and what I do with it, who I talk to, and what I say to them, is none of your damned business, boss. If you want to have any say in what I do in my off time, fine. PAY ME FOR IT.
Hell, I had a problem with my promotion prospects being affected by whether or not I attended the company Christmas party, back before there was such a thing as social media.
As for the subject of the article… it’s going to be very difficult for me not to hold a grudge against Democrats. And it doesn’t really have anything to do with who wins, either. Consider:
They openly spoke of making DC and Puerto Rico states, and everybody knew it was so there would be more Democrat Senators and Congressmen.
They have not only openly spoken of packing the Supreme Court, but then passing a law to keep the total at whatever they end up with.
They have openly spoken about legalizing illegal aliens. Somewhere between 11 and 22 million of them, all very heavily Democrat voters.
Packing the Legislature, packing the Supreme Court, and packing the electorate, all at once.
Democrat voters know this is a blatant power grab. They know that the purpose of this is to make sure it isn’t possible for anyone but a Democrat to win a national election ever again.
In other words, single party rule with no accountability.
Simply put, they have voted for dictatorship. Yeah, I have a problem with that, regardless of who the final winner is. And with all the evidence of shenanigans coming out, and Democrats across the country doing the equivalent of plugging their ears and saying, “La-la-la, I can’t hear you,” it’s hard not to feel like they quite literally don’t care how shabby it all is.
Steve Green was right. They’re Jacobins, whose goal is to destroy everything, declare Year Zero, and build from scratch.
It is extraordinary to me how many people seem not to understand that if you change the rules of a game in the middle of the game, then there is no game. It’s painfully short sighted; the sort of behaviour we see in poorly socialised children.
In the long term, many of these wayward fellow citizens may come to realise that it would have been better for them to preserve the integrity of the game. This is unfortunate. It is no longer possible for me to trust that they believe in games at all.
I live in the People’s Republic of California where I get a ringside seat to one party rule every single day. It never ceases to amaze me how utterly flabbergasted many of the people here are by what their elected leaders do to them on an almost daily basis. The same leaders these voters so blithely elected.
If you’re looking for a new friend from NJ, I’m afraid you’re about 5 years too late for that :). Moved out to Eastern Washington from Piscataway for a new job in 2015. So now I live in a purple county within a deep red region of a deep blue state.
My wife and I moved to western wash. in ’94 from so.cal. Glad to be out of LA ,but hate how liberal this state is. I guess being conservative makes us a minority now.