Opposition Research

Am I the only one that finds it odd when someone uses a pen and paper to document something?  I mean; to-do lists, calendar appointments, etc. are all things that can be done electronically with relative ease.  Heck I do these things and I'm barely tech literate.  I feel like I know enough to do a lot of things on my phone/laptop/computer but I also know there's a ton of stuff I could do, but don't know how.  I've pretty much gotten to the point where I don't usually notice someone on their personal electronic device but if someone takes out pen and paper?  I'm drawn right to it.  It just seems weird now.

But that's not why you're here...

I went downtown to a concert last night, Drive By Truckers (if you haven't checked them out, shame on you) at Millennium Park along with my friend Tom and his son Alex.  Quick side note, Alex is the drummer for a band; NE-HI and you need to check them out, especially if you like good, loud, fast, rock and roll.  Any way, this was my second time seeing DBT this year but last night was part of Chicago's regularly scheduled free concert series so, yeah, kind of a no-brainer for this one.  Although parking was, while incredibly convenient, not so much in the "free" part of the evening.

I don't want to, nor am I necessarily qualified to, offer up a critique of the band but I'll say they write a lot about life in the South; both good and bad, and they're great storytellers.  Many of their songs have a distinct political opinion and that's one of the things that has endeared them to me.

Mostly because their opinion meshes pretty well with mine.

But, not everyone's.

Especially these days.

Which brings me, more or less, to my point.

As I often do, after the show, I posted some random pictures to various social media that I use.  It's what we do now, right?  We share these snippets of our lives with those we interact with, some good, long-time friends, some casual acquaintances, and some people we don't even know but may be friends of friends.  It feels like there's a word for that btw but I could be wrong.  No, not strangers...

So, among the pictures I posted was this one -

I don't recall the song, but "Sweet Baby" Jay was just crushing it.  So I snapped this shot.  As I was driving home last night, I realized I was starving and since I didn't go to the grocery store yesterday, I figured I'd just grab a bite to eat from a late-night diner on the way home.  I also took that opportunity to post my photos from the night on Facebook and Twitter.  In the ten minutes it took me to drive home after eating, I saw I had a couple "likes" and one "angry".

When I got up this morning, I checked to see who took note of what I posted and saw the "angry" poster had also added the comment "All Lives Matter".

Now, this gets tricky for me.  While I post what I want to post here, I do take pains to avoid blatantly controversial positions.  I have so few regular readers, I try to avoid alienating them.  For the most part.  And, since I know "angry" and like him, consider him a friend, I'm not writing this to call anyone out.

Quite the opposite.

I considered how I was going to respond for quite a little while this morning.  Because, as I said, I like "angry" and I didn't want to call him out.  I recognize we don't agree on several things.  But that's ok.  He's entitled to his opinion, just like I'm entitled to mine.  And I'm fairly sure a post on social media isn't going to change his opinion just like I know it isn't going to change mine.

I mean, really.  Have you ever looked at something 180 degrees from your beliefs and said to yourself

"Huh.  All this time I was wrong.  Breathing really is bad for me."

Exactly.  So I chose not to address the comment.  Still, I was prepared to step in if some of my more liberal friends chose to challenge the statement.  The situation resolved itself however, when "angry" deleted his post after an hour or so.

Here's the thing, I don't like trolls.  You may, but I don't. Some may enjoy taking them on, I don't. Some may enjoy being a troll from time-to-time but that's something entirely different.  When I post something of a political nature, I post what I believe.  I try hard not to post unverified stuff, but sometimes I get careless and let one slip by.  And I try, really hard not to inject my opinions into the posts of others.  More conservative others.  Again, occasionally I slip up.  And sometimes I've done as "angry" did.  Including self-deleting my comment.  I sometimes get surprised at the beliefs others have.  But I try, really hard, to understand how they may have gotten to that belief.  If some random troll pops up on one of my posts it's one thing.  But if a friend tosses out a comment I may not agree with, I try and give them the credit they've built up with me over the course of our friendship.

If a friend wants to block or unfollow me, it happens.  I've stopped following some friends because I'd rather hold to an opinion I've formed of them built over time rather than a random post or two that make me scratch my head.

I've actually been thinking about dropping Facebook again.  For whatever reason it just seems more trollable.  The only thing that keeps me on it is the fact that it draws more readers to my humble little blog than any other platform.  By far.  Like, it's not even close.  I almost feel like I'm selling my soul by doing that.

I saw a post recently that made a lot of sense to me, and I was able to relate it to something that also felt rational.  So, I think I'm going to end this way.

I can like the police and not like police brutality.  These things are not mutually exclusive.  Just like, as a firefighter, I have no use for a firefighter that is an arsonist.

I think these last two opinions make sense.  Maybe everyone doesn't, but maybe more people should.

Peace