Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Ad hominem

I have turned into that old man that loudly talks about current events in the next booth at Denny's.  You know the one, he talks loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear his thoughts on Obama. On Taxes. On cars being made of plastic. On why they needed dancing sharks on the Super Bowl.  He speaks in a tone, so that everyone can hear what he thinks. He wants to express his option, but I believe if you challenged his thoughts; he would not listen.

This morning, awaiting for my Krups to brew some French Vanilla, I read an article on Republican Rep. Trey Radel who pushed to make food stamp and other government aid recipients take drug tests, got busted on a charge of cocaine possession. This sent a massive Schadenfreude moment down my spine. The pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others; hypocrites, makes me happy. Especially on a topic so near my heart. Making restrictive laws to push people away from government help is just fundamentally wrong. But, that's not my point here.

I don't normally thump my chest about what I feel is fundamentally wrong. Yet, the first thing I did is what every person does, that can't sit in a Denny's and yell their opinions at others. I posted the story on Facebook.

This comes one day after Joch, the hottest and best bartender at the Denver Eagle, had a long debate over debates on Facebook. The debate on debates could of been intelligent and courteous. Yet, the term "ad hominem" had to be thrown into a heated debate. Facebook has turned into the village square. You stand in the center and shout your beliefs. Until someone shouts you down or tosses tomatoes at your head. The only benefit to Facebook is then you can unfriend and block the produce pitcher. People, and by people I include me, post their wild opinions via links to web-posted "news" stories because of lack of any other outlet. Facebook has made it easy to disconnect with interaction making us like the lonely man sitting in Denny's desperately attempting to get his voice heard.

If you need me, I will be sitting at the Denver Eagle discussing and debating the latest topics with Joch. 

2 comments:

  1. And one more reason why I haven't logged into Facebook in over 10 days. And counting...

    ReplyDelete

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