Can elections be over yet?
Yay it's my favorite time ever...election season! *said with dripping sarcasm* It's the time when my facebook wall is filled not with the happy or frustrated snippets of my family and friends' more monotonous (though endearing) parts of life, but rather with negativity and hatred personified as people bash and slander everyone who disagrees with their points of view. In general I find the liberals reek of intellectual elitism while the conservatives suffocate with their superior sense of morality. Though to be quite honest, it is the former that is painting my wall right now much more than the latter. It makes me uncomfortable and it makes me sad.
I want to scream, "Just because people don't agree with you, it doesn't mean they are idiots!" and, "Just because people don't agree with you, it doesn't mean they are evil!" Actually if you take the time to shut the hell up and look at why people have the views they do, most often they are admirable. Take abortion. Most of my liberal friends are screaming how detestable the Republican candidates are for trying to control their bodies...But if they could be made to understand that people who are against aboration see it as equivalent to murdering a baby, they would understand why people don't want to federally fund it. Or from the other side, for those conservatives who want to shut down Planned Parenthood, they are failing to see the ultimate desire of the company to help underpriveledged women to receive medical care they can't otherwise afford.
To the liberals I feel I should wear a sticker that says, "Yes, I'm conservative. No, I'm not stupid." And to the hard-liners I know back home, I want to say, "Was Jesus' beef mostly with 'sinners' or mostly with religious snobs who judged others based on rules and regs?" I was contemplating shutting down my facebook because of the negativity that it was bringing into my life.
Sadly, most people I don't even open a discussion with, because I see that they are blind and deaf and only want to spout their own filtered views. I've sat through conversations between opposing parties and later heard one party's interpretation of what the other said, and I was FLOORED because it was NOTHING at all what the other party said...It sounded like they had listened to the words spoken and had attached another meaning to them...A meaning that justified their anger and hurt towards the other party.
Truly the only solace I find is in the company of people who I really admire as having found peace. They are both confident and humble at the same time, because they are secure in who they are. People who are so filled with the joy of Jesus that there is no room for the negativity. I actually think I was like that in mid/late 2010- early 2011. But I've let the negativity seep in...And I think it's time for it to go away!
I want to scream, "Just because people don't agree with you, it doesn't mean they are idiots!" and, "Just because people don't agree with you, it doesn't mean they are evil!" Actually if you take the time to shut the hell up and look at why people have the views they do, most often they are admirable. Take abortion. Most of my liberal friends are screaming how detestable the Republican candidates are for trying to control their bodies...But if they could be made to understand that people who are against aboration see it as equivalent to murdering a baby, they would understand why people don't want to federally fund it. Or from the other side, for those conservatives who want to shut down Planned Parenthood, they are failing to see the ultimate desire of the company to help underpriveledged women to receive medical care they can't otherwise afford.
To the liberals I feel I should wear a sticker that says, "Yes, I'm conservative. No, I'm not stupid." And to the hard-liners I know back home, I want to say, "Was Jesus' beef mostly with 'sinners' or mostly with religious snobs who judged others based on rules and regs?" I was contemplating shutting down my facebook because of the negativity that it was bringing into my life.
Sadly, most people I don't even open a discussion with, because I see that they are blind and deaf and only want to spout their own filtered views. I've sat through conversations between opposing parties and later heard one party's interpretation of what the other said, and I was FLOORED because it was NOTHING at all what the other party said...It sounded like they had listened to the words spoken and had attached another meaning to them...A meaning that justified their anger and hurt towards the other party.
Truly the only solace I find is in the company of people who I really admire as having found peace. They are both confident and humble at the same time, because they are secure in who they are. People who are so filled with the joy of Jesus that there is no room for the negativity. I actually think I was like that in mid/late 2010- early 2011. But I've let the negativity seep in...And I think it's time for it to go away!