In My Humble OPINION

It used to be considered a character flaw to be an opinionated person.  The word often comes with arrogant.  Arrogant and opinionated.  Not someone you want at a party.  But now it seems like everyone is opinionated and with thanks to social media and comment sections, people are not afraid to express those opinions.  Not always in a polite way.

When did it become okay for us to spout our opinions about things we know nothing about in a public and, in many instances, permanent way? When did it become okay to be rude and nasty when expressing our opinions?  If you read any news story and then the comment sections you will notice that it doesn't take long for the commenters to turn on each other and start viciously attacking those who dare to disagree.  Whatever happened to healthy discussion?  Or friendly debate?  Isn't our ability to discuss issues in a courteous and mature way what makes us civilized?   Our ability to reason and examine other points of view? It seems the anonymity of the internet has made people rude and disrespectful and sometimes downright abusive.   It's makes me sad and angry.  I want to ask those people if they would say those awful things to the person if they were face to face.

I wonder if trash talking is the internet equivalent of road rage?  Ordinarily nice people can turn into raving lunatics behind the wheel of a car.  They feel protected by the anonymity the vehicle offers them.  Maybe it's the same with the internet.  Something happens to us when we get in front of a keyboard.  All of a sudden we are the experts on every single issue and we must share our thoughts for the enlightenment of others, consequences be damned.  Wouldn't it be interesting if it became illegal to trash talk someone on the internet and the penalty for doing so would be to meet the person you trashed face to face and be required to say those things to them, or face jail time.  It'll never happen though, after all we have free speech.

I am an opinionated person.  The fact that I am a blogger proves that point.  I will gladly share my opinion on just about anything.  I am well read, and I do a lot of thinking about life.  I am not an expert on anything except my own experiences.  And therefore I don't expect anyone to share my opinion.  I consider myself open minded.  In fact, because of my ability to see all sides of an issue, I can be easily swayed to change my opinion.  Does that make me wishy washy?  Or flexible? Perhaps. But I am able to take a stand on the things that are important to me.  So I try to be respectful of other peoples beliefs.  For example, my daughter is a fundamentalist Christian and I am a neo pagan Unitarian Universalist.  We couldn't be further apart.  And yet, we have learned to discuss our different beliefs in a mature and respectful manner.  We never call each other morons, or retards, or idiots.  And it's great to do this.  That's what conversation is about right?  The mutual exchange of ideas.  That's how we learn and grow.

In my opinion anyway.