If In Doubt...

This election season has been awful. I don't remember things ever being as nasty as this one was...of course, I'm pretty young. The first president I voted for was President Clinton. But I suppose with social networks and blogs, everyone has an opinion and things spread like rapid fire on the Internet.

And my problem with what happened this election was that people (doesn't matter what party) watched particular news stations...liberal or conservative, and believed wholesale what they reported. There is no questioning, there is only acceptance of whatever is said. We have had faulty reporting since there was reporting. We have had opinionated reporting since there was reporting. During the times of Lincoln, reporting was not based on facts, but on whether the paper or reporter leaned a certain way. A Democratic leaning paper would make up things about how great the Democrats did, and then you would read the same account in a Whig or Republican leaning paper and it wasn't anything like the other. We are way beyond where we should believe what the press says...or what politicians are saying, without thought or questions. Yet, people believed it without question...

And that is sad.

And then there is Facebook and Twitter. Everyone follows political groups that are for what your beliefs are. That stands to reason. But just because that group posts some picture or message DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE!! 

Before I re-post something, I research it. I made sure that what I posted was factual. I also try hard to make sure that I never re-post things that are critical of Republicans - just the candidates and their policies. I was careful to try and respect my friends and family that were Republicans that I wasn't against them, but I didn't agree with their politics. And I hope that I was able to do that without insulting anyone. And if I did insult anyone, I apologize.

And I always fact-check what my Republicans friends were posting. And like my groups, a lot of what they said was not based on facts, or were outright lies. I'm sure that I frustrated a lot of my friends because I would post what the facts were.

So I ask everyone to learn again. Don't fall into the hole of believing everything you read or hear, because most of it probably isn't true. If you're going to be making a decision on how this country is run, it's doubly important to do that. Question EVERYTHING. Research EVERYTHING. We are no longer in the 1800's and reading partisan newspapers. We have this wonderful thing called the Internet, and you can do searches and learn amazing things. And if you put a little of effort into it, you can dig up the truth...or find differing views that might change your perception of something. I'm not just talking about politics here, I'm talking about EVERYTHING! 

It is a never-ending frustration of mine that people don't educate themselves like they should...and then wonder why we aren't #1 in the education department. If we aren't going to question, research, and learn, how can we expect our children to do it?

~Ciao...