Thursday, September 16, 2010

The Facebook Wars

I've been defriended by two people now on facebook.

The first was, Fred, a friend from New Mexico, who came to Venezuela a couple of times. He stayed with me and my wife for a few days on his first visit. He liked it here so much and liked the revolutionary process of Hugo Chavez, he decided to move to Venezuela for a few months. Tania and I visited him on Margarita Island when he settled in on his second stay. We had an okay visit, but we obviously weren't on the same page when it came to Hugo Chavez.
 
Facebook came about and this guy was one of my first "friends". I was still learning the ropes and etiquette of the whole facebook-thing when I started contradicting what he was posting about the positives of Hugo Chavez. My friend, an artist, was/is extremely leftist in his views. It was probably rude on my part and perhaps not my place to go to his "wall" and post negative comments when he wanted to paint rainbows and butterflies about this so-called revolution. He defriended me. We had been friends for only about 2 weeks. That might be some kind of facebook record. 

Disenchanted with the whole fb nonsense, I turned it off for a while until one of my Venezuelan friends ran into me and said he was trying to send me something on facebook but my account was not turned on. I pondered that for a few days and decided, okay, I'll give it another shot. 

On my second time at fb, it has become a time-suck for me. I spend too much time on it and it has taken away from this...my blog. I like my blog. I feel this blog is me...kind of weird and eclectic. A collection of my random thoughts, but kind of centered around the mountain bike cultures. That's my brain...

On this second gig at facebook, my friends list has expanded greatly. Facebook has been great in getting to know and reconnect with family I haven't seen in 30 or more years. It has been great in getting to know family members (children of my cousins) I've never met. One of my friends was my 1st cousin, Tommy. 

Tommy and I have always had a good relationship. We are basically the same age, we always had similar interests and therefore liked each other when his mom and dad brought them out to New Mexico or if we went to Louisiana. Anyway, like I said, it was great getting to reconnect with him. We shared a lot of stories and such. 

One thing we didn't share was our political view. He a "conservative/libertarian", me a "left-of-center/liberal-light/libertarian-light/anarchist-light"...really I am not really sure...but its not with his views, nor is it with Hugo Chavez's bullshit. Got to be somewhere in the middle I suppose. 

Tommy didn't like me posting "political" stuff on my facebook page. What???? Apparently he just wanted rainbows and butterflies too. Don't we live in a free society?...These Tea-Party types are sounding more and more like Hugo Chavez and shooting the messenger. He would make long, long replies to my fb posts that I would skim over. I could see his point, but it wasn't necessary. I feel I am an intelligent guy and can make my own decisions...good or bad. 

The last piece I put up that broke the camel's back was an article published in Psychology Today about how liberals are more intelligent than conservatives. I posted it because it made sense to me. Not because I think I'm more intelligent than my conservative friends, but I think my liberal friends are more intelligent than my conservative friends. Maybe its my bias, but the most intelligent people (I am referring to I.Q.) I've met have been more left in their thinking (don't get me wrong, I do have conservative friends that I find intelligent and we have great conversations, but politically we don't see things the same way). I didn't explain that when I posted that Psych Today piece, I just posted it without comment. My cousin blew a gasket on it and defriended me. Oh well. I kind of laughed that day. I still do laugh about the absurdity of it. And this is the reason I haven't been back to Louisiana since 1996 and probably won't go back. My upbringing and experiences have brought me to another place. Louisiana will always be part of who I am. I look in the mirror and its hard to deny those Cajun roots, but I don't think like that part of my  family and I'm glad. 

So, I've been defriended by both ends of the political thinking spectrum.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

I've found the button that lets you ignore posts from people that bother you works best. That way if they ever want to send you a message they can, but you avoid all the Farmville requests or politics that you disagree with.

Getting to the point where it is no fun to get worked up about everything that I disagree with. Just know that it's a 50/50 shot that Facebook posts from you, Larry and my sister will set me off and I try not to finish reading those posts and move on. I'm now one of those dumb conservatives, living up here in Idaho with my guns, dogs and emergency rations with the radio tuned to Glenn Beck so he can tell me what to do.

Mimbres Man said...

See James! That's an intelligent way of approaching it. I've done the same thing with the FB filter thing.
Hey, I lived in Idaho for a season, and I'm a gun owner too and believe in my 2nd amendment rights. I want more guns! I just don't like to listen to dorks like Hannity, Glen Beck (Beck the musician is cool, Beck beer is okay too), and the other crazy ballistic guy...forget his name on Fox. I don't like sheeple. (Most people have that herd mentality and need leadership and guidance...hence the invention of religion.) I don't like listening to many people, especially ones telling me how to think, what to buy, what to wear, what to do. I choose all that myself...There are only a few people I truly admire and call heroes. I've never had a whole lot of friends and have always been in my own little bubble.

Gunnar Berg said...

The hide button is good. I became connected with a liberal expat in Belgium. He lives his life on the conspiracy theory. He is convinced 9/11 was missiles and the U.S. government either did it or is covering it up - all of which makes no sense to me, but his postings were burying my Facebook page. I explained to him why I was doing it and then hid him. If he moves on to something rational I'll try to figure out how to unhide him.

mark scotch said...

i no ims not really 2 smart, but eyes can see why your beck lovers have a leetle issue wit u sometimes. alltho we havent met each utter, eyes feel weed have a goot time riding. eyes hope that in the end iffn eyes didn't see things your way you wouldnt calls stoopid or anything. maybe even a "becker" whos i think is kinda smart considering how accurate hes ben in his predictions.
eyes used to be in that SDS thing years ago and luckily eye saw what they really was. talk about manipulaters and mind f***ers! glad I got out when eye did.

Mimbres Man said...

Mark: poke, poke!

mark scotch said...

not gonna defriend me, are you??

hope I got a chuckle outta ya

Mimbres Man said...

Mark: I'd never defriend you.
I got a chuckle...yes. I understood the joke perfectly. ;-)

Silk Hope said...

Guns and Glen Beck. Hmmm as the "Rev" would say, Break out the Hamms.

Barin next thing you know we will have and easy rider gun rack mounted to our MTB's.

Mimbres Man said...

Silk: I used to ride with a guy who carried a S&W .357 in his handlebar bag. I thought that was a bit nuts. In the USA, I carried my Walther PP (the one on the 007 money) with me in my car for a while, but decided that handguns carry bad karma. The PP is more like a pea-shooter than a real gun anyway.