With this being the most, shall we say to be kind, unusual election year, it is easy to get defensive or offensive about beliefs on Facebook with friends and relatives.
Add in the countless social issues, and the easily butt-hurt feelings of every other group who seek special rights or treatment these days, and friendship hasn’t a chance.
Seems like no matter how many times one may vow not to respond to another’s viewpoint, some post or other will just set off one’s last short fuse and cause an explosion.
It is important to remember that in 10 weeks, the election will be over. Whoever wins, will win, and the rest of the population will return to their normal life. Hopefully, one of the candidates will remember seven out of every ten of their promises and improve the populace’s normal, work-a-day life.
These social and political explosions only do harm to long standing friendships and familiar relations.
The burning question is when and why did everyone get so incredibly sensitive?
What ever happened to agreeing to disagree, shaking hands and moving on to the next activity?
How about the art of debate?
The first presidential debate is scheduled for September 26, 2016. It is set to be moderated by Lester Holt of NBC. The second debate moderators are Martha Raddatz of ABC and Anderson Cooper of CNN for October 9, 2016. The third and final debate will be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News on October 26, 2016. http://www.myajc.com/news/news/presidential-debate-moderators-set-lester-holt-fir/nsRrL/
Although Chris Wallace is from Fox News, which was the news channel which once leaned to the Conservative side, Wallace has shown that he is more a fan of the Democratic Party and candidates.
NBC, ABC and CNN routinely fall over their own feet to quickly cover up any and all infractions of the Democratic nominee, while throwing roadblocks, innuendo and out of context remarks about the Republican candidate at any given chance.
Objectivity by the mainstream media is really in very short supply.
Debates are supposed to be conducted as such:
Candidate A is asked question number one by the debate moderator and given 2-3 minutes to expound on the subject.
Time is called and Candidate B is allowed the same amount of time to give their view of the question. Time is called.
Then Candidate A is given time for rebuttal, usually about a 1-2 minutes. Time is called again and Candidate B has their chance for rebuttal.
Then the moderator asks question number two in the same format, and so on.
College debate teams know these rules. In competitions, these rules are strictly adhered to or the match is forfeit.
The moderators do not involve themselves in the rhetoric at any time. They do not add their opinion or facts that might relate to the question asked to either candidate.
Debate is not a screaming match, nor is it a time for the moderator to bait the candidates to personally attack each other as was the case in ALL of the Republican debates held prior to the RNC Convention. The moderators from the media were no more than ringmasters in the circus of their making.
This election is a vital one. There is so much at stake and the people want to hear facts about the issues at hand. It is the issues that voters are concerned about, not whether or not someone prefers one brand over another or what kind of undergarments they might wear.
One can only hope that the 2016 debates will not be the debacle that was the 2012 Obama/Romney debate where the moderator, Candy Crowley, jumped into the debate to defend Obama on a question and stop Romney from getting his point across.
If the media is supposed to be objective and report from 3rd person perspective, they are failing miserably and have done so for quite a long time. Corporate owners dictate who should be treated one way and who should be mistreated according to where the corporate bread is buttered.
Perhaps the debates would be better served if the moderators were chosen from the top college debate team members.
As it is, kindergarteners probably can scrounge up better fair play than those who are supposed to REPORT the news, not skew it one way or another, or selectively create news and report the events à la carte.
Image: Автор: Krassotkin (derivative), Gage Skidmore (Donald Trump), Gage Skidmore (Hillary Clinton) – Derivative work of File:Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore 3.jpg (CC-BY-SA 3.0) and File:Hillary Clinton (24037852830).jpg (CC-BY-SA 2.0), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47274338
