You're Wrong...No, I'm Right

I've got friends on all sides of the political spectrum. One of the reasons they are my friends is because usually we are capable reasoned discussion around their opinions and that makes things interesting.

But not lately.

This really frustrates me because I love hearing what people think. I'm less interested in hearing them repeat what other people think and somehow passing that off as reasoned discussion. It's not.

I promise you, I do not now, nor have I ever, had a parrot as a pet. It is unlikely I ever will. I've never been in the least bit interested in having something that just repeats what I or someone else says. It's boring and unnecessary noise.

What is even worse is that somehow in the past 22 months or so it has become a part of "reasoned" discussion to shout at people. For a while most of that shouting came out of the Obama camp. Now it's coming from everywhere. McCain supporters have begun to shout. Even worse, they've begun to shout at other McCain supporters. What? How not okay is that?

Along with that shouting has come phrases like "how can you be so stupid to be voting for [insert candidate of choice]?" as if the person you are talking to has suddenly lost their mind because they don't agree with you.

But my personal favorite (not) has been this willingness to "comment" on opinion pieces that don't agree with your opinion and then to call it "witty."

It's not. It's tired. It's juvenile. It's disrespectful. And the only reason anyone gets away with it is that somewhere in this country, I hope, are people who recognize that reasoned discourse does not involve what is essentially a "nanny nanny boo boo" and so the conversation stops.

Two other things on my mind with this "you're wrong" attitude. First, there is a very basic fear people who have an opinion and aren't expessing it have - and that is that the lack of manners coming from other parts of this society are an awful lot like being in High School where if you weren't doing the 'in' thing you were in jeopardy of being beaten up. The second is that it's okay to 'wink' and parody the girl in this race but if you do the same thing with the black man in the race, well, that's racism.

It's true. Sarah Palin does and says some things that make her an easy target. Thank God she's okay with the fun we are poking at her at her expense. John McCain's face, drooping from the after effects of cancer treatment and just plain being old, make him fair game for comments about his health. Biden is fair game but not really leveraged because, well, he's not as old as McCain, not as female as Palin, and he's been around long enough not to be *that* interesting. But really, what if people actually did with Obama what they do with McCain or Palin?

And the lies, the outright lies wrapped around truths...on both sides. Geez, that's not debate - that's rumor mongering.

We teach our children not to behave this way...but apparently the lesson wears off.

So please, don't send me any more "opinion" pieces for either candidate. I'm bored with them. Furthermore, I am entirely too smart to vote for someone just because you tell me I should.

Oh, except for Saturday Night Live...they ARE funny - for the first time in years.

NL