Will B. Disappointed

With 2020 throwing right hooks and uppercuts like Mike Tyson, it’s easy to see how some are letting their worries and choosing sides take over their logic, manners and even common courtesy.

I am a patriot down to my core. I believe whole heartedly in the United States of America’s (USA) freedoms and constitutional amendments. I love football and all that entails. One of the best things about football is choosing a team to hang all your hopes on, to root on, to brag about and to defend when others talk smack about your team. I bring up choosing sides, like in football, because things have really got out of hand with things happening in real life so to speak.

This brings me to my topic of what I am disappointed in. People choosing sides over whether we should wear a mask or not, open Texas, don’t open Texas, back to school, don’t go back to school, take down monuments, don’t take down the monuments, Black Lives Matter, All Life Matters. I think you get where I am coming from.

There is never anything wrong with defending your beliefs, standing up for what you believe is right and defending your position on a policy that affects everyone. What is not okay, is treating someone who is opposed to your position on any given subject or policy in a disrespectful manner.

Here lately, things have begun to turn ugly on social media with topics like mask wearing, for example. I recently read a post where someone claimed people who do not choose to wear masks are ignorant along with some other choice words to the effect that people who don’t wear masks are beneath the average person simply because they choose not to believe the same way as others do. You could find doctors on both sides for or against wearing masks, but this is not the point I am trying to make.

I have always been of the belief that as long as your freedoms do not impose on my freedoms then do whatever you please. We have too many restrictions and government interference as it is. But when a person starts trying to degrade or bully someone over their beliefs, that’s when it is time to step back and re-evaluate how you interact with others who have the opposite opinion that you may have. Many times, throughout history things that were considered fact later became fiction and vice versa. People use to think the world was flat and scoffed at the ones who believed it was round. Who is to say what will be fact tomorrow that seems like fiction today?

What we can control is how we interact with others during a debate or exchange of ideas. I find it hard to try and get across exactly what I am trying to get across so I will sum it up with this. Treat everyone you talk to, even if you do not agree, as if they are your mother, father, brother, sister or best friend and I just bet you and I will be better off for it.

This is Will B quoting Rodney King “can’t we all just get along”