A friend of mine passed on a bit of wisdom this morning at the Amarillo Town Club that I’d like to share here.

All this give-and-take on social media — particularly Facebook — he says, makes him think about whether he is looking critically enough at his “guys'” missteps, mistakes, goofs and blunders.

He was speaking about some of the Facebook threads that have developed among people of differing political points of view. I’m happy to report that some of the threads to which he refers is in response to posts that appear on this blog.

I’ve given some thought to what he said and his wisdom makes sense.

We all have our own bias. I tilt to the left and I recognize my bias there. Many of my friends in the Texas Panhandle tilt the other way — no surprise there, right? I like sharing ideas with them, even though I recognize they’re always wrong and I’m always right.

OK, back to the seriousness. My pal, a well-educated man who works in the public sector, takes note of the need to assess whether we’re being as analytical as we can be when assessing some of these issues.

Some of the social media posts do twist off in irrational directions. Barack Obama is seen by many on the right and far right as a traitor who intentionally seeks to degrade America’s ability to defend itself. I try to restrain myself when I see that kind of opinion tossed into cyberspace. My friends on the left and far left are equally perverse, suggesting for example that George W. Bush actually sanctioned the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to get us into a war with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I also restrain myself on that nonsense as well.

The vast middle ground between those extremes is where we need to focus our attention.

I’m willing to talk sensibly with anyone. I’m also willing to acknowledge that I tend to look differently when my guys mess up than when the guys on the other side mess up. I’m not going to apologize for that. It’s my bias and I’m entitled to wear it on my sleeve, just as the other side is entitled to display its own bias.

My friend’s point about taking care to look critically at my side, though, holds up.

I hereby pledge to seek to do so — even if it produces the same response.