Public service announcement

[feren]

We live in troubled, interesting times... just as our parents did, and their parents and their parents before that. Since the moment we crawled out of the ocean and onto dry land to test our newly evolved lungs we've lived in perilous, frightening times. There has been no "Golden Age" where everything was peaceful and all was right with the world. Such a thing never existed. To think that it did is to exhibit a level of naievete that is truly astounding.

Now, with that being said I'm going to get to the meat and potatos of tonight's entry. It's December 7th, 2003. We're marching steadily towards January 1st, 2004. With 2004 comes the election in the United States for our next President. With any election (from school board to President of the United States) comes political discourse, and with political discourse comes drama. Because the signal-to-noise ratio has already started bubbling this early I'm going to conduct a little sweep through my "Friends List." I loathe the misnomer that the name "Friends List" represents, but I'll save that particular rant on LJ naming conventions for a later time. Suffice to say that if you notice you've been removed from my "Friends List" it's probably because your journal contains what I consider an abnormally high ratio of politically-charged commentary to other content as of late. This is probably a temporary condition, something brought on by the upcoming song-and-dance of our impending election.

If you've been removed, believe me when I say that it's not because I disagree with your views. In removing you I am not condeming your opinions, nor am I questioning the sexual orientation of your ancestors. I am not hiding from your righteous truth. I am not demanding you change your standpoint. I am not removing a temptation to argue. I am not saying you are wrong for posting political commentary in your journal -- it is, after all, your journal. I am not going to leave you off forever -- once this fervor dies down I'll probably add you back. I am not going to cry if you remove me in kind. I won't cry even if you never add me back.

What I'm hoping to achieve with this little exercise is to lower the signal-to-noise ratio on my friends list. I'm doing this because I just don't care a single whit about politics. I don't care to debate, because they're never debates -- nobody ever "switches sides," so "debating" usually leads to nothing more than hurt feelings. I'm going to be a nasty, bad, self-centered jackass and just skip that entire scene. In the coming few months my life is going to become sixteen times more complex than it has been in quite some time. I'm going to have more frustration, drama and general crap to deal with then ever. When my life is stressing me out to that level I completely shut down and politics stop holding any and all interest for me for the reasons I stated above.

So, since we're coming into a particularly politically-charged period of time I'm going to take preemptive steps to make sure I don't actually develop hard feelings towards people who are posting about what interests them.

This world will know

Comments

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Right on!

And phooey to anyone who tries to make you feel guilty for not being an Informed Citizen or whatever.

[sylverfox.livejournal.com]

I normally don't talk about politics in my journal due to the fact that everyone knows about my political leanings and I don't need to spark debate by spouting off my mouth in a public forum. I can give my right-wing friends hell, my left-wing friends a comforting pat on the shoulder and all of my socialist/radcial comrades a thumbs-up outside of LJ.

[youngvanwinkle.livejournal.com]

I understand. I am one of those friend-whores who gets antsy when their friends list suddenly loses someone, but I can deal. Whatever makes your life easier, man.

Ironically, I've been making an effort to make more "personal" posts and less "politics" posts lately. But still, I am just a political person, and I know that, so it's gonna happen.

Maybe instead of trying to adjust my LJ content so it doesn't affect everybody, I should just stop worrying when people don't wanna read my journal anymore.

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

I wish I could do this sometimes. Not necessarily on political issues. Or that I could at trouble myself to finally learn how friends filters work, so I could filter out some of the "noisier" people on my friends list.

[frostyw.livejournal.com]

If you're ever so inclined, or if you ever have a free moment (heh), visit http://www.livejournal.com/friends/editgroups.bml .

If you make a "Default View" list, you'll only see those when you go to your friends page. If you want to see everyone, regardless of the filter, just tack '?filter=0' on the end.

For my part, I'm just filtering folks, reading my default view most of the time and reading the unfiltered page every so often just to make sure I'm only missing out on the political and dramatic commentary. And, no, nobody but you knows who's on what friends group.

[jingle.livejournal.com]

I haven't made it into Inky's friends list (*sniff*) but I don't really do posts on politics, so you're safe, cat. If I ever do, it would be as unbiased as I can possibly get... just basically like 'Hey, go vote', or 'Here are the candidates... go study', or 'That lady at the polling place gave me a really nasty glare... hope she stubs her toe' (okay, that one's a little biased).

[hakeber.livejournal.com]

I'll be sticking with the usual metaphysical and cultural maunderings. I find most political debate a cross between extremely boring and frustrating.

[varro.livejournal.com]

I was one of the subjects of this post, and I'm still keeping you on my friends list, if only to remind Amy that a cat can barf more than Walter. :)

I suppose a lot of people will be turned off by heated politics; this campaign likely will be bloodier than any since 1968, in many senses. (/politics)

Whew!

[genevra.livejournal.com]

Looks like I haven't been deleted yet. I'm sooo not a political person, but I just happened to make my one and only politics related post just before you posted this, Feren. Looks like you're not holding that against me? Hehe.

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

I guess I technically know *how*, but I'm having, like, issues about the rightness of it. It's weird.

HOW people says things is important

[giza.livejournal.com]

I think that HOW people say things is what's really important. I personally am a little left of center, but I will happily read stuff from people on the far right or the far left so long as they are reasonable and civil about it.

But when I read combative stuff along the lines of, "liberals are the greatest threat to democracy" (actual quote!), it kinda makes it difficult to have any sort of intelligent conversation with the other person. :-(