THE FACEBOOK CHRONICLES

"Wish we could just resurrect the spirit of let's work together, " lamented a cousin of mine.

My initial reaction was, "No, I don't see that happening." Recently I got involved in some one day Facebook political "discussions." This experience has caused me to change my answer to, "Hell no, I don't see that happening."

The difference in thinking on some basic life situations is amazing. The first FB post was from our local newspaper. It stated, "Dead on arrival. That's the fate of a controversial bill in the New Mexico legislature that would allow business owners to refuse service to customers based on the owners' religious beliefs." OK, I am a free market, personal responsibility Conservative. To me if I have started a business, sunk my personal money in it and am relying on its success to feed my family, I should be able to make total decisions as to who or what I serve. The business is MINE.

It seems the Liberals who responded, and the 125 comments were pretty evenly divided between left and right, believed basically in the argument of Elizabeth Warren and the President, ("You didn't build that business") The left point of view was that the business folks are "using the infrastructure created by society. Imagine having to run that business without public roads. Imagine not having reliable utilities like electricity, phone, internet, water/sewer. Imagine having to defend that business without fire and police protection. Sorry, hun, if you start a business here, there are rules and rightly so. The business likely wouldn't exist and have a potential to flourish without the structure already in place. I challenge you to go put a business in the middle of no where, without any of the things I mentioned above, and see how well it goes."

Setting aside the fact that the first businesses that funded this country were out in the "middle of no where" and seemed to do alright (Have I really gotten to the age where people are calling me "hun"?). My belief is that since the people who own their own businesses have contributed to the infrastructure, should they not be given the option of how they want to use that infrastructure? Who they want as customers? How much should the public sector be able to tell the private sector what to do? Sure, the public sector took the money from the private sector and coordinated the building of the infrastructure, but if no businesses started, who would fund the government? This is an age-old left vs. right chicken and egg debate.

Of course there are current Federal laws against discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation and religion. I have already said how I feel about those, and many of the Facebook comments dealt with the left/right of those specific issues. The right saying if people don't like the way they are treated, or not treated, they can go elsewhere. The only one hurting in that scenario would be the business which is turning away paying customers. The left feels we all contribute to the business being able to maximize its effectiveness (the commons), therefore the whole has the right to tell its parts how they are to operate. This variety of thinking is one of the many obstacles in our "working together".

How much control the public sector should have over the private sector is a discussion based on some degree of facts and rational beliefs from both sides, but that wasn't the part that scared me. When the comments deteriorated into just religion and its part in the proposed New Mexico bill, I felt a need to go out and get a security system for the house (or another gun, but that's a subject for later on).

Since 83% of Americans describe themselves as Christians, I can understand why the anti-religious comments were thrown against Christianity, but the the depth of emotion was a surprise. Comments such as:

"Racist, bigoted, idiots"

" Ignorant and truly brainwashed "

"Warmth of Satan's blessing should be coursing through your bloodstream, mingling with the blood of that lamb...."

Believers in" Easter Bunny, tooth fairy, Santa, and leprechauns...."

"The scared religious monkeys need to evolve...."

"Total brainless idiot"

"Christianity is a religion of hate" (I love this one because they seem to hate and are bigoted toward Christians because Christians are full of hate and bigotry.)

Then there was one, a pro-religious guy, who had this helpful suggestion to the anti- group,"Grab your protective helmet and go to your sand box, moron." Consider this potential solution to the problem of business not discriminating by religion, "If you have deep-seated religious or personal beliefs, don't start your own small business."

I have to wonder how the Federal government will handle the non-Christian situations. What will happen when a Muslim business refuses to cater a Baconfest? What if Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York were to attempt to hire Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris, noted Atheists and professional speakers, to read the Homily at St Patrick's Cathedral at the midnight mass next Christmas?

As you can see, we have a ways to go to "work together."

There was another Facebook posting that covered Matthew Bissonnette — the former Navy SEAL who wrote a book, No Easy Day, detailing his role in the mission that took out Osama bin Laden. He is facing federal criminal investigation for revealing classified information in the book. As a Conservative, my first reaction was that when it comes to revealing classified information it would seem that a SEAL could go to jail and Hillary could go to the White House. Many of the other views were summed up by:

"Bin Laden was dead long before Obama had Navy Seals look like they got Bin Laden. Later all Navy Seals on that mission were killed due to a crash. This guy saying he was the hero killing Bin Laden was under the wings of Obama. "

Then, of course, there was the obligatory Gun Control posting of a news article: Concealed Carry Gun Owner Shoots Himself After Accidentally Killing A Friend. As has been true in every mass shooting, I write, " Not a thing suggested by the administration would have stopped this." I asked, as I do whenever this subject comes up, "What is a doable solution? "

Here are some of the helpful R-rated solutions to our very real gun issues set forth by Facebook contributors. (This is why, cuz, "working together" is so challenging.)

 "See how disturbed many gun owners are? The more they worship guns and act like someone wants to take their guns (thanks to Fox news and other douche bag republican politicians), the more I want these crazy people to be unarmed. All you crazy people should look up the term "self-fulfilling prophecy" and apply it to yourselves. "

 "Well, that's one way to get rid of these gun nuts"

"He got what he deserved, and this goes out to everybody else that has a small penis thinking that they need to carry a big gun ."

 "We've come to see and expect this at the hands of the rabid right-wing gun owners."

 "HAHAHAHA! Let them have more guns and kill each other. Any asshole can get a gun in America"

This is just one day's back and forth on Facebook. one day of a cross section of humanity and how they view and would solve the issues of the day.

God help us--if I'm allowed to say that.