Shut Up! (Do I Have to?)

 

I can’t believe it has come to this… Even in my close circle of family and friends, the political divide has driven a wedge that requires daily awareness, making sure I don’t fully express my opinions or share facts that they don’t accept. When I say too much, a chill comes into the air, and real communication screeches to a halt. I was nudged to write this today because a friend asked me to be sure to post pictures of our upcoming journey. She said, “Post pictures … I always like your adventures.”

Unfortunately, I’m no longer comfortable doing so. I wrote back, “It’s a little bit awkward because some people think we shouldn’t be going at all, and others ridicule us for wearing masks. Honestly, I feel that it’s a personal decision and I don’t want to start a Facebook debate. 

But it’s not just COVID, with (ignorant) anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers (“I demand my FREEDOM!”), and “It’s God’s will.” people, it’s virtually every issue out there – climate change, abortion, gay rights, police brutality, voting rights, immigration, etc, etc, etc.  Once in awhile someone with clearly opposing views will surprise me, like when an anti-vaxxer posted that you should be nice to your servers and cashiers when they enforce a mask requirement, as it's not their choice. They're just trying to do their job. Later the post was deleted, but at least I had a moment of hope. As I've previously observed, people don't change their views because of a post a friend puts on Facebook. But they seem to believe just about anything they see on TV. But if you believe that doctors murder babies when they're born  (thank your orange former president for that doozy), you're delusional. That's murder, not abortion. 

Anyway, this was feeling soooo negative that I decided not to post it, but today we had an amazing conversation with a retired TX cop, now living in Arkansas. We disagreed on almost everything, yet we had a great, friendly reasonable discussion. So maybe we don't have to zip it. Just remember,