Bryan W. Alaspa 1Losing friends because of politics
May 27th 2010 00:38
I had a particularly strange thing happen to me recently. It makes me profoundly sad, actually. But I lost at least two friends, via Facebook, because of my liberal political leanings. To me, that is profoundly sad. I have never understood the idea of having friends who only believe everything that you believe. What fun is that? Isn't having a wide variety of friends with a wide variety of beliefs more interesting? At least one of the people who left me obviously was not paying attention and said she was surprised to see I was a liberal and then de-friended me. Again, that seemed profoundly ignorant and sad.
I think the world is full of too many people who are so staunch in their beliefs they are not even willing to listen to anyone else who has a slightly differing belief. That to me is very sad. I may disagree with you, but I appreciate that you have a different opinion and can respect your feelings. I just choose to disagree with you.
People seem to want to shout down anyone and everyone who has any kind of different value system. It is like the child who covers his ears and shuts his eyes really tight and then yells. They don't wan to even acknowledge that other people might have different feelings about things. To me, this is sad. Why should the world only believe one thing? I don't think even God wants that or why would make us all so different with so many different beliefs and ideas?
My other friend seemed to want to encourage debate. Then, one day, I said that the company he worked for might actually do better for their customers if they didn't have private planes and pay his salary as a private pilot. While I can understand that as insulting, I cannot understand not acknowledging the potential reality of that situation. He works for an insurance company and insisted that they attempted to "do right" by their policy holders.
That may be. I don't know the culture of the company he works for. However, I do know that they are generous up to the point that their executives can still fly in private planes. Plus, I doubt the executives would really spend a lot of time telling their pilot how they screwed a cancer patient out of her medical insurance.
I don't understand the desire to have everyone the same. I cannot fathom surrounding yourself with nothing but people who think like you. I cannot fathom only watching TV or listening to the radio and to people who only affirm what you believe already. You have to keep open to new ideas. You need to listen to those ideas, research them, and reach your own conclusions. That's the only want this world can work, the only way people can try to live better and understand each other. The only way that makes any sense.
I think the world is full of too many people who are so staunch in their beliefs they are not even willing to listen to anyone else who has a slightly differing belief. That to me is very sad. I may disagree with you, but I appreciate that you have a different opinion and can respect your feelings. I just choose to disagree with you.
People seem to want to shout down anyone and everyone who has any kind of different value system. It is like the child who covers his ears and shuts his eyes really tight and then yells. They don't wan to even acknowledge that other people might have different feelings about things. To me, this is sad. Why should the world only believe one thing? I don't think even God wants that or why would make us all so different with so many different beliefs and ideas?
My other friend seemed to want to encourage debate. Then, one day, I said that the company he worked for might actually do better for their customers if they didn't have private planes and pay his salary as a private pilot. While I can understand that as insulting, I cannot understand not acknowledging the potential reality of that situation. He works for an insurance company and insisted that they attempted to "do right" by their policy holders.
That may be. I don't know the culture of the company he works for. However, I do know that they are generous up to the point that their executives can still fly in private planes. Plus, I doubt the executives would really spend a lot of time telling their pilot how they screwed a cancer patient out of her medical insurance.
I don't understand the desire to have everyone the same. I cannot fathom surrounding yourself with nothing but people who think like you. I cannot fathom only watching TV or listening to the radio and to people who only affirm what you believe already. You have to keep open to new ideas. You need to listen to those ideas, research them, and reach your own conclusions. That's the only want this world can work, the only way people can try to live better and understand each other. The only way that makes any sense.
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