Frustration Over Our Decaying Sense of Civility

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Like many, I truly enjoy the words of encouragement, great quotes, scripture, interesting tidbits of history, and pictures of my friends and their families online. What I find much more troubling and much more aggravating (and much more prevalent these past few years), is how dismissive and condescending so many people are online when a person shares an honest belief, thought, philosophy or viewpoint which is not shared by all their friends. Politics and Religion are the greatest examples of this. 

It takes a good bit of faith these days to post your beliefs for all the world of Facebook (or another online forum) to see. It may not quite be the same level of trust and intimacy of sharing your birthday suit with someone, but sharing your deeply held personal beliefs and convictions is indeed inviting people to see your inner most self. Sadly so many take the opportunity to repay that level of authenticity, honesty and openness by shredding people's souls and questioning whether they are deserving of being heard at all, let alone deserving of any respect, just because they disagree with some of those convictions.

I routinely see so many people, who purport to love everyone (indeed some go to great lengths to stress their love for all people), not miss an opportunity to post a link to a story, or to type a commentary which in all honestly, is the equivalent of unzipping their fly and urinating all over someone who disagrees deepest held values.

Listen, you may not like who I support for President or Governor. You may not like my viewpoint on religion, law enforcement, freedom, liberty, science, books, television or music. That is fine. I respect your right to disagree. In fact, I will vociferously defend your right to disagree with me and to engage in the forum of public debate. But, please understand when you post article after article trumpeting how smart and right you are, and how everyone else is f---ing stupid or f---ing heartless; it is actually a greater reflection on you, your heart and your intellect than it is on me and mine.

I have, and will continue to share my thoughts about a wide variety of topics. I will sometimes present an unpopular or different view of how a subject is being handled. If you want to disagree, I welcome another voice to the debate. But, I sincerely hope when you do, in those seconds between keystrokes and hitting the enter button, you will have a moment where you ponder what is written, and ask yourself: is this really me and my heart? Because that will be the public representation of what is inside your character.

No one post or subject in particular led me to post this, rather it is an accumulation of things I have seen posted to more public forums such as Reddit, or in the comments section of various websites. If I get too big for my britches, I sure hope my friends and family will care enough to let me know. Now, back to a lovely Sunday afternoon.

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