Your Political Tweets Fail, You Know That, Right?

George would have never used his Twitter account

I follow a few well thought out liberal and conservative pundits. I also follow a few that fly off the seats of their pants. They get paid, through the magic of the Internet, to talk about politics. There is a space for political speech. The United States and most of the civilized western world thrive because we're not jailed (for the most part) for speaking our minds. I'm only partially going to be referring to those people, but this is really for the rest of us. I've long ago learned to tune out of the vitriol that is their livelihoods.

This has become probably one of the harder times to hold a reasonable debate on issues of the day. Not only are we confined by the walls of social media, but by an amazing renewed tactic. Intolerance. I know I've harped on that before, but it becomes very hard to debate someone when the straw man is built that declares descent is akin to being somehow bigoted towards another party or an ideology.

So now, in this day of speedy news and speedy spin, we've thrown out proper discourse. I love a good fight, but I also believe that the day of having a proper duel may be over, for now. The only real response is to take off the gloves, and go toe to toe with someone in disagreement which only causes anger, blocking online friends, and absolutely, positively, no resolutions.

Are there resolutions in political debates? Certainly not. Opinions vary and contrast from one person to the next, but when do we find the proper place to agree in disagreement? That seems to be the missing ingredient in these discussions.

So what are we left with now? Angry, intolerant tweets and Facebook messages that dare argument instead of debate. Worst of all, these close minded brain farts never change any one's minds about any topic. They don't  edify or provide constructive criticism, they're just really kind of trolling or trying to show some intellectual superiority. To have a premise that your detractors are stupid in breeders is a poor way to start in the formation of an opinion.

Couple this with rampant hyper sensitivity and we have a formula for wasted time, wasted space, and wasted emotions. Social media is not going to solve our world's crises. It's actually contributing to the decline in finding solutions. I've seen this slacktivism work when people are focused on something to improve our world, but when it comes to politics, it's really just a lot of banter.

Finding a common thread, properly expressing our opinions in open forums, and actually listening to our detractors may actually and eventually prove to be productive. I'd love to retort most of my friends on these networks, but it has always ended poorly.

In this election cycle here, all that's left really, is just a waste land of passive aggression. And that is a major #fail.