Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Yippi-Ky-Adkbar, MOFOS

Today, on my IRL Facebook page, I unfriended someone

I rarely unfriend people. I'm not in any position to toss away friendships, you know? Some people have hundreds or thousands of Facebook friends and no compunctions about shuffling the mix if time or circumstances call for it. Me, I treat every one like a precious validation of my weak, insecure soul.

Nothing a few decades of therapy couldn't straighten out,
I'm sure.

Specifically, I have immense tolerance for people whose political views differ from mine. Facebook would be totally boring if the only posts I saw were from those whose opinions and viewpoints mirrored my own. I have friends who are far more liberal than I am, as well as friends who are far more conservative . I'm OK with that, as long as we approach our differences with mutual respect (or if we ignore them altogether, which actually is preferable). 

When I unfriend people, it's generally because a) they become abusive or b) they tell lies. Those are deal-breakers, mmkay?

Let me tell you about the person I unfriended today.

She is a former co-worker (actually, I was her boss). She's a lovely woman from a lovely, large, devoutly Catholic family. She is - really - a former nun

What could possibly make me unfriend such a person?

Well. You've heard, I'm sure, about the attack on a mosque in Quebec. Six people were killed, eight were injured, while praying. You may have heard that two suspects were arrested. One was later described as merely a witness and released. The other was 27-year-old Quebec citizen Alexandre Bissonnette, who has been charged with 11 counts of murder and attempted murder.

Looks like the love child of Daniel Radcliffe and Tobey Maguire,
only filled with hate and armed.

These are the facts we know right now. Except that my former friend - and her family members and friends - have a different point of view. Which they expressed in no uncertain terms on Facebook.

I wish I had taken screenshots before I unfriended her, but I didn't, so I'm going to be paraphrasing here. But it's close, honestly.

  • They believe there were two shooters, both Syrian refugees who had been in Canada for less than a week.
  • They believe the shooters screamed "Allahu akbar" as they fired. Well, actually, they believe it was something like "ali ackbur" (again, no screenshots, unfortunately). But you get the gist from this ignorant rendering of what is believed to be a threatening phrase.
  • They believe the "mainstream media" are outright lying about what happened.

To recap: these "devout" Catholics on my timeline were convinced that the murder of six innocent people by a radicalized asshole is somehow a conspiracy, a lie, and an opportunity for the Church to step in and "correct" society's ills.

And they said I was buying into the leftist media's lies (again paraphrasing actual rhetoric) because I dared make a comment questioning the truth of their "facts."

So yeah, f*ck that shit, you're unfriended.

Hypocrisy bugs me. As does extremism. As does devotion to mindless rhetoric in lieu of thinking for oneself.

Disagreements are welcome, here, on FB, anywhere.

Just don't be a Kool-Aid-swallowing, keyword-spouting bitch about it.

And we'll get along just fine. 

But I'll cut off a Canadian Catholic nun if need be, don't forget.


4 comments:

  1. Yeah, if people don't care about the truth, what is the point of communicating with them? The point of any political discussion should be to exchange information & ideas, to get the bigger picture that helps us to figure out what's the right thing to do. My husband has a similar problem with "friends" of his--they re-post something that has been debunked by Snopes.com, for example, and when he directs them to the truth, they insult him or delete his post. What's the point in even trying to engage with that kind of person?

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  2. I recently read Father Joe, about Tony Hendra's long-term friendship with a monk. At one point Fr. Joe asked Hendra what the point of satire was and Hendra said it was to make the world better. Fr. Joe said, "It doesn't seem to be working very well."
    If anything it's had the opposite effect. Beliefs that are so ridiculous they should be treated as satire are being taken seriously.
    So anyway, a priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Is this a joke?"

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  3. Interesting how Syrian refugees who have been in Canada less than a week could lay hands on automatic weapons. Did your ex friend explain that?

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  4. So, they belive that Syrian refugees, (presumably Muslim?) blew up a mosque NOT a Catholic or any other flavor of Christian church – while shouting allahu akbar. OK then! That's some serious, atomic level dimwittedness.

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