Sunday, May 15, 2016

A World of Hate

As I was writing my little opening post, I mentioned how I didn't want hate mail if you disagree with my opinions. But as I think about it more, it is sad that I have to ask for no hate mail. What has happened to our world? When did it become acceptable for people to be so nasty to one another? A former co-worker of mine recently posted on her facebook, that if any of her online friends were Trump supporters, that she wanted them to unfriend her (she is a die hard Bernie supporter). As I was looking at the comments to her post, I was shocked by what I was reading. A friend of hers was saying how intolerant he thought that was of her. Which I agree. I think that everyone should be allowed to have their opinions and still respect others as well, but that is a different post. In response to this friends comment, the comments from others exploded. It went from a simple, 'that is really close minded of you to stop being friends with someone just because of political opinion differences', to people saying 'how dare you, you "blank blankin" white privileged racist male". And of course the initial comment poster, and two or three additional people, went back and forth bashing on one another, calling each other horrible names, and just being cruel. And this was all from one girl saying that she didn't want to be online friends with someone who has different political views that she does.

This is happening all the time in our world now. It seems that ever since social media boomed, so did the idea that manners and etiquette towards our fellow man no longer matter. It is one thing to disagree with someone. But it is another entirely to be cruel. It is no wonder that the world and our country is falling down around us. We can't be civil with one another long enough to fix the problems.

With this election coming up, the hate meter seems to be turning up even more. Personally I think that all of the candidates are horrible. I'm writing in a name for president as of right now. However, most people that you see talking about the coming election are complete fanatics and are blinded to the good of the other side. There are always pro's and con's to every candidate, but these fanatics are disregarding the other side completely. And not only that, they are going out of their way to be harsh and mean to those who disagree with them. Which is absolutely ridiculous. I don't like Obama, but you don't see me going out of my way to tell anyone who does like him that they are wrong and going to hell, bla bla bla.

I don't know if there is anyway to fix this anger we have for one another, other than being more conscious of how we are treating others. We need to keep in mind those childhood sayings. If I may quote Thumper from the disney movie Bambi, 'if you can't say nothin' nice, don't say anythin' at all'. And the sayings such as 'treat those as you would want to be treated', and 'love thy neighbor as thyself'. It may just be a dream, but I for one would like to see less bashing and more loving of our fellow man. Maybe one day it will happen, but it is up to all of us to change our mindset in order for that to happen. If you are reading this, then start with yourself and spread the love. We will change this world one person at a time.