Yesterday I received a post on
facebook that was a picture of President Obama exiting Marine One, He was on
the phone, and had his right arm to his temple in salute, to me he looked pretty involved in this conversation as he walks
down the steps of the helicopter . Two Marines, in dress blues, stand on
both sides of the stair way at attention and saluting. This picture is
snapped, in maybe mere second, the viewers of the picture, really have no idea
what happened before that second the picture was snapped or after. Mostly it is
a nice photo well taken.
The caption imposed over the
picture is “These men standing guard over you will put themselves in front of a
bullet for you, put the damn phone down and return the salute.
Now several things ran through my
mind when I read this caption. It did not have the effect on me the creator
expected it to. Which is rather obvious, the person who created this wanted me
to be offended that our President was disrespecting his guard. Of course
it was designed to inflame to create controversy and make the president look
bad. That is not the effect it had on me at all. I could go on about how
inaccurate it is that a commander returns a salute or even acknowledge the
guard presence. Though like I said we have no idea what happened before or
after this picture was taken .
But that is not what got me, what
got me was the commenters, several different commenters thought it would be
great if they stepped aside when the bullet came. It went on in graphic detail
on how great it would be to see our president get shot.
The comments got pretty graphic and rude. My feelings
for the person who sent me this diminished immediately. I wondered if they just
saw the picture and gave it no thought of it being a second in time or maybe
what the conversation the president was having or with whom he may be speaking
to that held his attention so. I wondered if they read the accompanying
comments of which I read about 50 from a few hundred and if they too felt how
great it would be to see the President take a bullet in the head. I wondered if
they knew how they had been manipulated into the false sense that Obama was
disrespecting people who would die for him. I realized it was basically a
marketing ploy, a ploy to use your emotions and already set opinions to
belittle this man. Because of one second in time. I could look at this
whole thing and calmly come to these questions and conclusions. Until I read
the comments of the masses who had something snarky or ugly to add to make sure
that the president looked an small and ugly and dead as possible, I was yes
angry and inflamed not by the stupid ploy but buy the stupid reaction.
Not because of the picture or of
the stupid ploy but because of the horrible and threatening comments I deleted
and reported this post, I at first just hid it from my time line, but the
more I got thinking about it. I knew I had to take a stand somewhere. That is
when I deleted it and reported it. I posted that I get how we all have different
feelings and are on one side or the other I might like some of the stuff you
send, but if you send me stuff that it a lie rude, or racist, that I think less
of you and may even eliminate contact with you.
I received several nice
supportive comments to my post and a very special one from my daughter who is
not a person who is interested in politics but said she loved me for my
passion, that was the best compliment ever.
Following is a reply comment I
posted and then turned the comment into a post.
I wanted to pass my feeling on
more, so I am sending them to you,
I love how our government works;
it is brilliant, when it works. But for it to work, extremes on all sides need
to be checked. We the People is the ultimate goal. All of us, all of our differences,
our aspirations all of our LIBERTY, all of us United as ONE. ONE NATION,
UNITED! How can we be united when we are all so different? Many of us care
about the same things; there IS plenty we agree about. The important thing is
that every single voice counts. No one person has worth or value more than
another when it comes to the right to vote and that single vote mattering. Our
government was designed with checks and balances and when they are administered
effectively they work. When government is manipulated for political
gamesmanship we all lose. I have seen more of that in the last four years than
any time in my 53 years on earth. When the systems are gamed, the use of
inflammatory rhetoric and outright lies, scare tactics, innuendo and racism are
the norm we have sunk pretty low. And that is when we get back to one of my
favorite words in our great nations title THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA",
UNITED what a great word. What a great concept, WOW. We achieve that UNITED in
this government by the ELECTION the election is when we get to vote on our
ideas of the best way to manage these millions of us, with all of our different
ideals and priorities. Holy crap what an undertaking, what an amazing
undertaking this process is.. fascinating. Think about it all that goes into
putting this kind of a thing together. But it won’t work if the extremes or if
money is allowed to go unchecked and game our election process. As a democracy
one side wins one side loses, but we all lose if there is no compromise on
issues we disagree on. The vitriol and the hate and disrespect have gone too
far. UNITED means, that above all, we except that we are all different, we have
different ideals and visions, but we stand united that our citizens will have a
voice in how as a whole we want to do things. To do that, we must use respect
above all else. Our leaders WE elect MUST respect us and we need to treat them,
even when we don't like them with respect. That does not mean we don't get to
voice our opinions, it sure doesn't mean we don't get to poke fun (that is my
favorite part) but we need to check the extremes on both sides.
