{"id":42619,"date":"2020-05-07T20:42:31","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T20:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=42619"},"modified":"2020-05-07T20:42:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T20:42:31","slug":"its-getting-too-cruel-folks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=42619","title":{"rendered":"It’s getting too cruel, folks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Your friendly blogger — that would be me — believes it is time to level a complaint against a popular social medium \u2026 or more to the point, against the way some of my “friends” are using it.<\/p>\n

I’ve given it away. I’m talking about Facebook.<\/p>\n

In this Age of Donald Trump, I discovered long ago that many of his followers\/cultists are using Facebook to launch attacks of amazing cruelty against those with whom they disagree. They get their cue from the Big Man his own self.<\/p>\n

This is the guy who has mocked the physical appearance of his political foes and women who have accused him of sexual misbehavior; he has mocked a New York Times reporter’s physical challenges; he has denigrated the accent of his Alabama-born former attorney general. Accordingly, the Trumpsters out there have followed Trump’s lead and have sullied Facebook with hideous photos of those who have opposed the man who masquerades as the president of the United States.<\/p>\n

I need to make a couple of points.<\/p>\n

First, I have a number of Facebook “friends” who actually are friends of mine who fall into that category of Trump cultist. I even have some members of my family, individuals I love because they are family even though we disagree politically.<\/p>\n

I have put some of them on notice, though, that if I see any future Facebook posts that trade on gratuitous cruelty, I will (a) delete the post from my news fee and (b) sever our Facebook connection.<\/p>\n

I do not mind political disagreements in the least. I spent the vast bulk of my professional life dishing out opinions on newspaper editorial pages and taking plenty of heat and grief from those who disagree with what I had to say.<\/p>\n

I damn sure do<\/em> mind cruelty. I have sought to refrain from referencing a few of Donald Trump’s physical traits that have drawn barbs from others. I will disagree mightily with what Trump says<\/em> and does<\/em>, but I will not poke fun at matters that have nothing to do with public policy.<\/p>\n

My second point is that fairness should require me to demand the same of anti-Trump individuals who post these social media messages and images that denigrate the president. Full disclosure: My bias gets in the way of fairness \u2026 and I regret that. My goal now is to look more critically at the hideous images that come to my Facebook feed.<\/p>\n

I need to remind myself that I am better than the target of these attacks \u2026 even though he brings all of it<\/em> onto himself.<\/p>\n\n

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Your friendly blogger — that would be me — believes it is time to level a complaint against a popular social medium \u2026 or more to the point, against the way some of my “friends” are using it. I’ve given it away. I’m talking about Facebook. In this Age of Donald Trump, I discovered long … Continue reading It’s getting too cruel, folks<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1424,1676,4300],"class_list":["post-42619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-facebook","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42620,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42619\/revisions\/42620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}