Why I'm Done Posting Political Point of View On FaceBook

Well, to be perfectly honest, it's because as best I can tell nobody cares—or reads it.

So that's one reason.

Also—and again, a smart person probably wouldn't admit this, or at least go announcing it as if he were some prescient smarty-pants, but—Romney's toast. He's probably the worst politician either party has seen running for president in my lifetime (and that's a pretty long time, going back to Eisenhower's last year in office), with the possible exception of Mike Dukakis. What's worse, his political team, his advisors, are made up of the kind of hacks and discredited fools that would give the management of the Colorado Rockies a run for its money. Again, if I were a smart blogger, interested in growing my audience of like-minded souls at a time when most of them are just starting to pay attention to the political race, so that I could one day end up on the Huffington Post ... well, no one ever accused me of having a lot of sense that way.

And even if I did, no one (not really) wants to read about it on FaceBook. As my dear wife has heard me say ad nauseum: FaceBook's brilliance is that it took everyday banality to the next level, allowing many of us the illusion of connection without having to actually smell the person and worry whether some of his or her saliva was going to hit you in the face when he or she told you—live—what was going on with his or her children, or home repair, or where they'd gone of their vacation, and instead of, say, smiling while at the same time seething with envy over whether that person's vacation was cooler than yours, you could simply huddle with your device and privately, very privately, and quietly (or not, if you're home alone, as I am now) say to yourself: Fuck you and fucking vacation you fucking fuck!!

Which sounds smug, and pompous of me, I know—and it is!

But here's the thing. As much as most of us, when we aren't on some cool vacation ourselves, don't especially want to hear about someone else's vacation, we'd rather hear about their vacation, or even their children's activities, than listen to them go on about who they're going to vote for in November.

I mean, I know its part of the human experience to find out that someone you really think a lot of, and respect, "Likes" something, or someone, you don't like, or think is a fucking idiot. I know that happens, and I really shouldn't expect the sort of perfect world where, at least on FaceBook, it doesn't happen. But what I've decided is that it doesn't need to be a reason for despair. For thinking less of that person (anymore than I would want them to think less of me). Supposedly Reagan and Kennedy got along famously, as did William F. Buckley and John Kenneth Galbraith. I know it isn't fashionable these days to be so cosy with those you don't see eye to eye with on economic issues, that practicing Catholics ought to get the better seating in the pews than the ones who only go to church when their mom is in town, but nonetheless, it wouldn't hurt us—it wouldn't hurt me—at a time when people are getting killed over some not even B-grade movie to say WTF ... WTF do I care if someone I really think highly of, and would do anything I could for if they needed help, or someone had hurt their feelings, or fucked with them in some way, is reading the entire compendium of the "Fifty Shades of Grey" series? Does it really matter if a person who almost all the time makes me smile "likes" Paul Ryan? Am I not someone who embraces irony, paradox? Is my own life not one great big example of both?

So, you ask, WTF is your point?

Well, in short, I'm done, on FaceBook at least (if you want to read my political stuff, in 140 characters ore less, no less, follow me on Twitter @BPithyCB), pushing my point of view on people and imagining that they're going to give a shit. I'm going to stick with anecdotes, preferably funny ones. And if I tell you about my vacation, and include pictures that might make you for even a second want to strangle me because you're stuck breathing smoke in 100 degree heat after your child just dumped a bowl of cereal on their homework, I'll try to include at least one horrible thing that happened to me that day. Something we can all relate to and not feel too murderous about, to each other.

Anyway, I'm going to try.