Check your facts, please, people!

I hate politics.  I hate politics a lot.  I admit I don’t pay a lot of attention to political things, and try to keep out of discussions about those for that and many other reasons.  I know that there are a lot of people who don’t like President Obama, and that’s fine with me.  I’m not saying whose side I was on at election time, just that I voted for the person whose platform I most agreed with.  Obama won the election, for good or bad, right or wrong for our country.  Is he gonna be right all the time?  Hell, no, because you know what?  He’s a human being.  The best he can do is hope that he makes more right than wrong choices, and that the rest of the governmental process supports those and helps correct the wrong ones. And, let’s face it, that’s the best all of us can hope for, both from our President, and in our own lives. 

However, I hate untruths a whole lot more than I hate politics.  I totally don’t mind the fact that people have other thoughts than I do, and it doesn’t mean I don’t still like them and want to be friends.  They are entitled to their own beliefs, just as I am and everyone else is.  But it really pisses me off when those beliefs are based on, and fostered and inflamed by untruths.  The latest that several of my friends have posted on Facebook is a speech by Ben Stein (and I admit I’m so out of it that I don’t really know who he is), allegedly regarding the Obama’s decision to call the tree a ‘holiday’ tree rather than a Christmas tree, and to not put religious themed ornaments on it. 

And even more than untruths, I really, really hate that people just spread them around when it is pretty easy to check them out.  Just go to snopes.com or hoaxbusters or any of the several other sites that research things and tell you if they are true, false or some of each.  The Christmas ornament thing?  False, according to Snopes.  The Ben Stein speech?  Yes, it was made, but not as a response to the Obama’s White House Christmas tree.  That would have been impossible, since he made it in 2005, when the president was named Bush.  Any doofus can put two things together and call it facts.  People who care about what they are passing on check before they further spread untruths.

So, people, please check your facts.  You don’t like that Obama got reelected?  That’s fine.  You don’t agree with him?  That’s fine, too.  I won’t argue politics with you.  I will argue spreading things that aren’t true.  Please don’t do it.  If you’re my friend, I’d like to think you’re better than that.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/ornaments.asp

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/confessions.asp