Facebook bitching

Okay, so I post a quote of Ted Kennedy talking about his opposition to legalized abortion (his views changed, at least as far as we know, after). Most of my friends already know I'm pro-life, for a combination of religious and secular reasons which I won't go to here. Yet those same friends jump on me like I wanted women to throw themselves into the Santa Ana (replace appropiate body of water here for context). I know not everyone agrees with me - fuck, I live in a liberal college town - but seriously, what happened to respecting other's opinions? Or was I wrong to post anything political on the Internet?

edited 8th Jun '11 2:51:07 PM by Cojuanco

Probably. The safest way to avoid conflict is to keep your mouth shut. This does have consequences however. But I hope you aren't running afoul of the drama import rules.

edited 8th Jun '11 2:52:25 PM by blueharp

Drama import rules? I'm merely asking, by means of a real occurence, whether talking politics in mixed company is a good or bad thing.

People with strong political opinions are almost universally self-righteous. Similar things have happened to me many times, but if you don't push the issue, they will forget it in a matter of days. It's hard having differing opinions in an almost politcally homgenous community, but you'll have to live with it.

I just use Facebook for relaying funny news.

I tend to use it to organise parties.

Rule Zero about politics: Maturity exits back as soon as two different groups enter the same room.

Honestly, you'd be hard pressed to be find a good level of discussion about anything remotely controversial and even you'd probably need a small and even number of people to avoid it becoming a "beat down on the one other person" deal. Do I really have an answer for this? Not really. Everyone should be allowed to express their views but where having to deal with the consequences of those views and being silenced by the majority can be a fuzzy line at times.

Homogenous? My friends range everywhere from Communists to people who think the Jews are responsible for everything of significance, and everyone in between. That's why I was surprised when they start low-key flaming. I don't hate women, I don't think they have to stay in the kitchen, and it pisses me off when people act like I do, when they know better.

edited 8th Jun '11 3:01:34 PM by Cojuanco

Abortion is a hot-button issue that's very polarized.

It's very hard to bring up without implicitly bringing up all the other arguments about abortion people have had. Angry people do transference, and abortion gets people angry; in that state, you become a representative of all the things that have made them mad in such arguments before.

And then you have the anonymizing Internet, which means that they don't have any cues to hold back.

Safest to not throw out polarizing things in your Facebook, I think; it's not a great place to have a reasoned discussion.

Another thing. People like to talk all the time about how supposedly liberal professors won't allow for conservative viewpoints in discussion. But from my experience, the professors, even the most left-wing, were willing to give the other side a fair go, and it's the students (note - the two women in the OP are students) that tend to think like politicized zombies. Perhaps it's something about more experience in academic dispute that keeps professors of any persuasion open to the opposition, and that we as a society have lost that ability to a certain extent?

I'd say it's more that young people are more likely to be absolutists, having not the practical experience of the world (in many cases) to temper their idealism.

Politics. Internet.

It's like cats and pictures man.

^^^possible.

My philosophy teacher was a hard right christian conservative. he never graded me down and in fact gave me straight a's for my written essays that promoted a leftist viewpoint because I could argue it well.

edited 8th Jun '11 3:20:38 PM by Midgetsnowman

Yeah, but why are our dicussions much more civilized? After all, we're on the Internet.

Because you get banned for not being civil here. What's the worst that can happen on Facebook? you get defriended?

Different sites attract different types of people. Tropers, as an average, seem to be intelligent, extremely tolerant and open-minded.

Because:

1. Mods
2. We share a general attitude around here (or the OTC at least) that you should at least try to be nice about any particular subject.

Honestly, Facebook neither has that kind of culture or that kind of authority.

I got defriended once. Mostly because they kept posting highly right wing polls with zero moderate liberal options. They mostly consisted of do you believe either 1: right wing dogma or 2: baby eating satan worship.

When I pointed this out they defriended me.

@Usht Actually it's because people around here tend to be SMART. It's a self-selecting group of people who are intelligent and interested. Most people don't fit that bill.

@OP In any case, the whole thing is that just because you think that your issue should be "funsies" doesn't mean that it's that way to everybody else. To a lot of people issues actually matter. If you're willing to vocalize your opinion you have to be ready and willing to allow other people to do the same. And yes, it will reflect on what people do think of you.

What I mean by "funsies" is that there's a lot of people out there (I'm not implying the OP is one of them, although the post IS a swerve into this territory) who think that political/social issues are little more than a debate club and don't actually mean anything in the real world. Words and ideas mean things. They really do. I mean on the abortion issue..it's like you hear people call women who have an abortion murderers...so let's throw them in prison right? Well no...that wouldn't be right...but we throw murderers in prison, well of course. But....

edited 8th Jun '11 3:36:47 PM by Karmakin

x5

There's nothing worse than being on Facebook!

You've already signed away your soul by logging in, so what could they do?

Ah, but nuance doesn't make something "funsies".

Stalked.

Or your employer googles your name and finds pictures of you beer bonging or something.

edited 8th Jun '11 4:20:50 PM by Pykrete

"what happened to respecting other's opinions?"

Nothing happened to it. It was never more than an illusion that all opinions are somehow equivalent in weight and merit.

To expound upon what Madrugada said, Facebook does not have an official medium where people can have truly organized debates (correct me if I'm wrong). Debating in Facebook is very much ad hoc and makeshift in nature. You have to count on people policing themselves in situations like that, and I'm of the opinion that a lack of explicitly stated rules like the ones on OTC are what causes the situation like the one the OP experienced. Aside from extreme cases of harassment or stalking, ad hominem arguments and other temper-driven arguments are fair game on that site, and it wouldn't be the same if a debate rule system were installed. Facebook isn't meant for that.

edited 8th Jun '11 6:30:18 PM by Aprilla

It's called "Facebook" because you are writing an intimate diary of yourself that faces the rest of the world.