My farewell to Facebook….

Dear Fellow Citizen Producers.  I’m getting off of Facebook, here is the goodbye I just put up: 

“Hello, Facebook friends, I just wanted to put this up to let those of you who care know that I will soon be making a permanent exodus from this social media platform.

This isn’t an easy thing to do. Facebook has afforded me many opportunities since I joined in 2009. Among them have been reconnections with life-long friends, finding new friends and having a home on the Internet that serves as a depository of memories for my life-adventures with Cindy.

Also, I use Facebook to update the more than 2,400 followers of my company, Bonnette Media, and to stay informed of all that’s going on in Sweetwater, Tennessee—where I put out a monthly magazine.

No matter, my business will survive without Facebook. It’s just going to take more work on my part to get the word out and to stay informed. I was a journalist before Facebook and I know how to operate without it, so I’m not overly concerned about that.

There will be inconveniences and a twinge of sadness for the lost connections, but leaving Facebook is the right thing to do.

I can no longer tolerate a social media platform that built its brand on free speech that’s working overtime to stamp out free speech.

The betrayal of millions of the very people who help build Facebook into the powerhouse of influence it is today can’t go unchecked. The time has come to leave and I hope that I can inspire at least a few of you to do likewise.

I don’t post very much political opinion on Facebook anymore and I haven’t really engaged anyone politically on Facebook for years now.

It might even surprise some who have connected with me through Facebook in recent years to learn that at one time I had posts of a political nature was shared and read by more than a million people. That was back when I used to get paid to write online as a political columnist. A few who do know this about me have asked why I have been silent in recent years.

It should be noted here that I don’t ever recall a political discussion on Facebook in which I was insulting or rude to someone. Also, I have never defriended or blocked anyone on Facebook who holds political beliefs different than mine. Others, even family members, have done that to me.

The main reason I disengaged politically on Facebook is that I felt this country was becoming more and more divided by harsh discourse and I chose to focus my energy and talents on unifying people. I did so through three publications that I have created over years. With one exception, I never ran content that touched on political issues. That exception was last year when I saw government’s heavy hand destroying small businesses by enacting draconian COVID-!9 shutdowns that were destroying people’s livelihoods. I pushed back on that.

Since I published my first magazine in 2015, I have used all of my publications to help remind Americans of the things we have in common. I have written hundreds of stories profiling people in small-town America, with all their challenges and triumphs, to champion our common humanity.

I also have tried to make God a central theme in my publications. Without Him, we are doomed.

My watchword over the last few years has been “UNITY”. It’s not anymore. The watchword for the era that we are entering must be LIBERTY!

I have no loyalty to a political party or politician. Those who have followed me long enough know how critical I was of Donald Trump before he was elected. I didn’t trust him.

I watched what he did after he was elected, however, and I was pleased with most of it. I’m not going to debate his merits or shortcomings here. I would win and it’s really pointless to do so on Facebook, anyway. That’s why I don’t do so. It’s a waste of my time.

I think the title of a column that The Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan wrote a few months back sums up my feelings on Trump. It read something like: “Donald Trump is the Best Chance We Have and that’s a Damned Shame”—I don’t have that title exactly right, I’m sure, but it was something along those lines.

Trump did a lot of good over the last four years. Not everything he did was good, but everything he did was did under attack from an activist media who aided in covering up mass corruption from the opposing party. The sorry state of journalism in this country saddens me and is the main reason that this country is in the trouble it is in.

When Trump was wrong, I have said he was wrong. When he was right, I have said so. Mostly, though, I have been silent on political matters on Facebook in recent years. Really, this is much bigger than Donald Trump, who was recently banned from Facebook, I understand.

If you care to understand my political leanings, they find their origins in the 17th Century Enlightenment, which holds the Individual above the Collective. It’s particularly shaped by thinkers like John Locke, who never saw the need to separate God from the equation of his fidelity to reason.

In fact, God was at the center of the natural rights bestowed us. It’s this thinking that is the root of our nation’s founding, despite what revisionists would have you believe. It is the thinking that has lifted hundreds of millions of people from poverty and slavery over the last couple of hundred years.

Another Enlightenment thinker, Voltaire, said “I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Facebook doesn’t believe this and I’m leaving.

Those who want to find me can do so on MeWe and Parler. Just look for Tom Bonnette there and you will find me.

I opened a MeWe account more than two years ago, so I have two of them there now. I saw the way Facebook was going back then, so I tried to move some of my friends over there with me. Few would go, so I stayed on Facebook. I think more people understand now what I was complaining about back then. If you want to find me on MeWe, the account that I am using now is the one with the profile picture of me and Cindy.

I encourage those of you who chose to remain here to ask yourself if it’s really worth it as you watch the fascism in real-time that’s happening here now. Pay attention as those you follow are de-platformed and you continue to be sent to Facebook jail for your opinions.

I am going to hang around for just about a week more to see if I can bring a few folks here along with me. After that, I’m gone.

Along with my personal profile, I will soon be creating a business page on MeWe for those who follow me at Bonnette Media as well as a music page for those who follow me for my banjo posts.

Good luck and Godspeed to you all. I’m going to other social media platforms.

Facebook can go to hell.”