twentysomethingtulip

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a glorious waste of time, Facebook, politics

“I will not fight on Facebook. I will not fight on Facebook. I will not fight on Facebook.”

There are many reasons to argue with somebody. Maybe a potential opponent says something you find narrow-minded, logically inconsistent, factually absurd, or just plain ignorant. Perhaps you’re in the mood to educate, to bequeath your wealth of knowledge upon the poor sap who questions the obvious validity of global warming or the homosexual agenda or the coming invasion of men from Mars. It’s a favor you’re doing them, really. Maybe you’re just in the mood to fight, or maybe you’re legitimately mad as all fucking hell.

I’m a fighter. I love it. It’s a rush. And the internet makes it easy—immediate access to so many people who (wrongly, of course) disagree with me on any particular topic, all obligingly cloaking their humanity with a handle or a social media account or just the cold technological reduction of a person to pixels and light. And it’s terrible for me. So I have made a conscious attempt to stop.

I want to affect change in our society. It’s why I went to law school. I want to see all families given access to worthy public schools. I want teacher certification and training made to reflect the realities of challenging school environments. I want to see forced socio-economic integration. I want to see the Supreme Court read into the Constitution the right to an education enabling all citizens to exercise their other constitutional rights. I want to see No Child Left Behind put through a shredder.

I want these things because I believe I am right. But I will never win if I approach from the stance that my opponents are irrevocably, irredeemably WRONG. And I will only succeed in causing greater harm if I rush out into the battlefield propelled forward by the notion that my opponents are my enemy. My opponents are never my enemy. My enemies are the cycle of poverty and urban blight and low property values and drugs and violence and crime and racism and sexism and homophobia. My enemy is a shortage of books and money and patience and safety and food. My opponents just have a different idea of how to combat the enemy. Or whether it is the province of the government to fight the enemy at all.

I know that does not make my opponents evil or stupid or wrong or in desperate need of my enlightenment. I know that does not make them bad Americans. So I am trying, against every contrary impulse, not to treat them that way. Hopefully they will do the same for me.

And to all those friends who roll their eyes when I post something on Facebook—let’s not fight about it, ok? If you hate what I post, delete me from your news feed, or invite me to have coffee with you so we can see if we can find some common ground and move forward. Because arguing on the internet is like running in place.

Am I right? Of course I’m right.

My very brave friends, LauraJane and Magnolia, have started a blog about deciding when and if to have children, and they invited me to join. But I am not there yet. I am still in law school, which means I do not know where I am at the moment. I know that breakfast is my favorite meal. I know that I like shoes and poems and cheese and the commerce clause. I know that I love tulips, and I know that I am in love. For the moment, that’s all I know.

But I still have the urge to contribute something. It’s a daunting task, as it feels like even the most cursory of internet overviews yields an infinite wave of everything that everyone else has said. It’s all been done already.

But I have a voice. I think I should begin to use it. Let’s see what happens.

twentysomethingtulip

Truths.

On Politics and the Internet and Being Right

New Beginnings

The Cat Approves the Endeavor. I Think.

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