Facebook Politics

Facebook shows you more than the trivia of your friends' lives. It also shows you their politics, and how they think about the world. This can be fascinating and unsettling.

For example, some people I like recently joined Petition To Remove Group "Soldiers Are Not Heroes", a group that's a petition to remove the Soldiers Are Not Heroes group.

Leaving aside which group I agree with, the 'Petition To Remove' group scares the fuck out of me: their goal is to silence people who disagree with them. If you want to engage the "Soldiers Are Not Heroes" group in vigorous debate, argue with them, call them names, start a group called 'Members Of The "Soldiers Are Not Heroes" Group Are Clueless Ingrates' - fine. That's freedom in action. Let both sides make their cases.

But remove them from Facebook because you don't like what they're saying? Shut them down to shut them up? What could be less free, less noble, less American, than that? That's not what our troops are fighting for. That's the kind of death-to-unbelievers intolerance they're fighting against.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall