#sotu

Honestly I don't keep up with the political world, I realize that makes me somewhat ignorant and unable to form actual opinions on the topic however it just has never interested me. I also feel that too many people don't know how to correctly debate and be civil with one another when communicating and/or arguing each other's views. Therefore, I avoid it all together because I just see it as drama.


I did watch the entire state of the Union address as well as the republican response and as I did
I thought to myself  I don't even know who this person is. How can I say if I 'love' or 'hate' him? With that in my mind, I thought he gave a great and inspiring speech and although I don't agree with a lot of things he has done (or hasn't done) I can't deny that when he started the state of the country was already in poor shape, we were already in major debt, and lots of things were left undone by the president before him. I have pretty much always had a bad connotation with Obama and whenever he was brought up, I would roll my eyes and say "whatever." I'm embarrassed of myself that this way of thinking was nearly all due to my surroundings! I live in a red state and it seems all my family and friends have a total negative view on President Obama. So I suppose it was just easier to agree with everyone around me. I can't say for certain that his speech last night made me turn a 180 and adore him because like I said I still don't know enough about his whole presidency and what he did or didn't do, BUT I do think I have a better appreciation for him now and think that maybe he really did try his best to make the right decision to please the most amount of people in MOST cases.

Now onto my observations with social media, I chose to follow mainly Twitter and Instagram mostly so I could see what strangers were posting. My Facebook was unhelpful because I don't really follow people that get involved with politics and start arguments over everything (remember when I mentioned above that I don't follow it?) On Twitter I was actually quite surprised that most of the tweets were actual fairly positive. A lot didn't even have to do with the actual speech or Obama, they were commenting on odd looking people in the audience or the camera man doing a poor job. Two of my favorite tweets of the night were these. One was posted by Katherine Timpf that reads "I want a prez that strives for a USA where ppl have the opportunity to do things for themselves rather than an obsession with handouts." I totally agree with her statement! I know that there are lots of people who are struggling and genuinely need help (I was in that situation my whole childhood) however I feel that the system that is in place now makes too many people dependent on the help rather than using it until they are back on their feet and move on (as my parents did) I don't feel like we should keep letting people believe they are victims and that they "deserve" a break. The second post I liked was written by Adam White "you are an American. Whether or not you agree with his policies or the directions he put our country in.. It is still your responsibility to know what is going on. Here watch the SOTU."  I like that his post in a way resonates with the message Obama was trying to get across that nothing is going to change or go forward if we can't find a middle ground and start to debate better and compromise a little. While I agree that is an issue we all have, I don't know how we can achieve that if they continue to take power away from the states. I think if the states were given more voting power (per individual) and more allowance to pass their own in state laws, that would be a good place to start to reach compromise across the country.

Speaking of not debating civilly or compromising, I always get a good laugh reading the comments and responses on threads on Facebook. I did find a CNN post about the SOTU speech and saw that there were over 500 comments on it so I took a quick look through some of them. Typical responses were "I love Obama, best president ever!!" "Obama will go down as the best president the country has ever had, thank you!" These posts were maliciously followed by comments of "you must be a white trash idiot for thinking that" "are you serious right now?? So I guess you agree with starting a nuclear  war and killing fetuses?!" I just couldn't stop shaking my head. It's just appalling the amount of hypocrisy and uneducated assumptions play into these "Facebook wars" which is exactly why I avoid it!

In closing, social media posts,tweets, and comments don't sway me one way or the other, I am educated enough to know what is a credible source or what is not. I enjoy reading posts and comments from individuals who are educated on the matter and have valid and persuading viewpoints, these are the ones that pull me.