I usually try to maintain political neutrality.
Let's be honest, when it comes to opinions, most of us only like to hear those
which re-affirm our own beliefs. I'm not sure about other people, but I have a
habit of always thinking I'm right, so it rubs me the wrong way when I hear a
declaratory opinion that differs from my own beliefs.
So WHY IN THE FREAKING WORLD do people take it
on their own behalf to post strong opinions on their Facebooks?
For example, let's say I'm a Democrat a week
prior to the election, and I'm going off about why Romney shouldn't be elected
President. Okay, cool, good for me. Then, as I'm scrolling through my news
feed, I see all these "ignorant" citizens of the United states
slamming on Obama. I'm sure that would get my blood boiling.
Can you see what's happening here? People are
being intolerant of other beliefs, and we're having an Alpha Male Politics
competition. We don't care what other people have to say; WE care that our
opinion is heard more than anyone else's.
A little interesting fact, people. Most people
already have their own opinions, so they're not going to be persuaded by yours,
NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU REPEAT IT. Those who are most likely to be swayed
are those who are the least interested (AKA the ones who unsubscribed from your
posts because you were getting on their nerves from all of your political
rambling).
So how do you get your opinion heard?
1) Look for areas of agreement. For example, let's look at something controversial like Gay marriage. Some people are for it, some people are not.
Conservative people believe that marriage is
ordained of God, and should be reserved for a man and a woman. Other, more
liberal people, believe in the equal rights amendment even further (Equality
of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or by any
State on account of sex) and believe that marriage should be given to
all.
Before I go on, I just want to point out the
whole "separation of church and state" deal. How the HECK did the
government initially become involved in marriage? Lame. However, they are
involved, and they give out certain benefits such as:
- Hospital Visitation Rights –
Married couples have the automatic right to visit each other in the
hospital and make medical decisions.
- Health insurance –
Married couples have the right to visit one another in the hospital and
make medical decisions for one another.
- Spousal Privilege –
Married couples have the right to refuse to testify against one another.
Everything you say, write, email, fax, etc. to your spouse can't
be used against you.
- Inheritance rights –
Married couples have automatic rights to inheritance in the
absence of a will.
- Family leave –
Married couples have a legally protected right to unpaid leave to care for
an ill spouse.
- Pensions –
Most pension plans pay surviving benefits to the surviving spouse.
- Nursing homes –
Married couples have a legal right to live together in a nursing home and
spend their final years together.
- Home protection –
Laws protect married couples from being forced to sell their homes to
cover high nursing home bills.
- Retirement savings –
Married people can roll over a deceased spouse's 401(k) into an IRA
without paying taxes.
- Taxes –
Marries spouses may inherit unlimited property from a deceased spouse, tax
free.
- Social Security benefits –
If you’re married, you get Social Security from a dead spouse.
Republicans and
Democrats may not agree on whether gay marriage should be permitted, but I
personally feel like they should at least agree to the concept of
equal rights. An agreement/compromise might be something like this: revoke
the government's ability to call something a marriage or not. Leave that up to
the religious factions. If the government wants to give out certain benefits to
people, let them give those to all civil unions. Marriage can still be
"ordained of God" and those who choose partners can still get
"equal rights".
2) Avoid personal attacks. In contrast to public opinion, people don't like being called "Cotton-headed-ninny-muggins" and other such terms. Do not name call, distort what a person is trying to say, or be nasty. BE CALM.
3) Focus on the facts. This one may be a bit tricky, because everything is biased. I'm pretty sure my boss at work told me about a book he read which instructed the user how to distort statistics to show what you want them to show. A silly example could be this: 90% of the people polled prefer chocolate over other sweets. Cool, but they could have left out that all the people sampled were women. Are you catching my drift? It's very easy to misrepresent information to your benefit. So you can't believe everything you read, and then pass it on.
4) Look for signs of disagreement. If you see something getting heated, back off. It's not logical to think "if I say something more nasty than them, I'm going to win, and then they'll have to admit defeat and that I was right". In WHAT universe? Probably your own--party of one. No matter what, people aren't going to agree on everything. Agree to disagree. It's hard to find 100% truth in everything. Who's to say who's completely right and who's completely wrong?
And, with that, I'm going to class.
