Twitter lends a voice to all, sadly

By the time this article comes out, the fervor and uproar over the passage of health care reform may be over but there are a few things that need to be addressed about the entire ordeal because this type of situation is bound to arise again.

After the bill was signed into law, everyone on Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets had something to say about it, which is fine because everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. But the problem we have today is that social media gives everyone a voice whether they are ignorant or intelligent, so real substantive conversation becomes blurred. When I saw others of different viewpoints ranting or raving about the health care reform law, I debated about arguing my stance. But one thing that crossed my mind was that a majority of people who were so outspoken about the bill most likely hadn’t even read the bill. There wouldn’t have been any point in arguing with people who have been misinformed and we are uneducated about the issue.

These days everyone can turn to their specific cable network that shares the same views as them and hear exactly what they want to hear, which most of the time can be distorted facts. To those on the right, no, the president isn’t some socialist, Marxist, terrorist with some evil plot to corrupt America. And to many on the left, no, every single Republican isn’t some radical, racist, fear-mongering bigot.

For those who actually knew what they were talking about in regards to the law, I also saw some unnecessary comments. Many of the people involved in some substantive conversations on these social media outlets had become emotional and unfortunate words were said. There were personal attacks on certain individuals’ religion, race and anything else imaginable.

It is perfectly fine to be passionate about your views but when it gets to the point of incivility and personal attacks, there has to be a line drawn. Calling each other names and demeaning others’ beliefs is not only unnecessary but it does nothing to contribute to the debate and discussion. I’ve brought this issue up because this is not the last of these types of uproars. The passage of health care reform has given this administration the momentum to push more of its agenda through. Hot topics like financial regulatory reform, education reform and immigration reform seem to be their next targets, so when these issues come up, please let’s all try to be a little more correctly informed and civil with our discussion. No one benefits from personal and out-of-line attacks just to get their point across.

Posted by Ian Bridgeforth on Apr 1 2010. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry