I woke up this morning like every morning. Happy to see my little world. I had a great oncology appointment yesterday so waking up was a little more special today. Then I looked outside and Mother Nature had given us a magical little snow frosting over the back woods.

Then, and please cue the screeching record sound in your head, I made the mistake of checking in on Facebook. Yesterday I had posted a Bloomberg News article about Attorney General William Barr saying that the US Justice Department has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

There was also some commentary about using the criminal justice system to pursue legal battles that are better suited for civil court systems. I found this interesting so I posted it. And I don’t post much about the post election or try not to. Truthfully, I’m tired of reading about it. One guy won and the other guy lost and we need to all get on with our lives.

Overnight post article posting a bit more of my timeline seemingly exploded. It started with someone literally saying an article from Bloomberg News was “fake news”. Alrighty then.

This person went on to list their curriculum vitae and life accomplishments as justification for her opinion. I kind of quietly said to her that I knew she was a Trump supporter and that was her opinion and that was fine, but essentially not to say one of the more reputable news sites in this country is publishing “fake news”.

But the comments didn’t stop. And soon this person was literally quoting their entire curriculum vitae or résumé as justification for their statements. That they were a former journalist and award-winning blogger and writer and had worked on political campaigns and was on the board of non-profits. And what does this have anything to do with what we were discussing?

I have been blessed in my life to know lots of interesting people. And for all those people who do include quite literally award-winning writers and journalists, and renown political strategists and campaign managers and more, not one of them has ever kind of made me start out my day feeling like a lesser human being.

Because I am not an award-winning blogger and haven’t written any books does that mean I have less value than other people? Does that mean if we don’t have those credentials specifically we shouldn’t have opinions?

Is there a New World pecking order that I am somehow unaware of?

Why I also find this upsetting is this is a person who belongs to several groups for women who support other women. Either via mentorship or showing mutual support for female owned businesses and how is this supportive? How are you supporting anyone in this world when you use your résumé as a defense of your opinion yet in the same moment make others feel less worthy?

I know so many amazingly accomplished people. I celebrate their successes and I’m glad to know them. But these people don’t make others feel bad about their lives and possibly their life choices. Am I as accomplished as a lot of my friends? No but we all give to this world differently, which doesn’t make any of us lesser human beings in my opinion.

I feel that in the USA the past few years has changed so many people. And not necessarily for the better. It used to be (because that’s what our forefathers fought for), that we could have different opinions and not feel attacked. But since the election it’s only gotten worse. And here we are at the end of a terribly long and difficult year in the season that is supposed to be magical, and will it be?

We all don’t have to have the same opinion. Nor should I be made to feel on my personal social media page that I am a lesser human being.

And of course if you go to this person’s timeline they say if anyone posts anything negative about a photo of this year’s White House decorations they will delete the comments. It’s that old do as I say not as I do approach, However, in a sense that is OK because it’s their timeline so people want to respect that, so why not equally respect my timeline on Facebook? (And truthfully this year the decorations look better than they have in the past few years. It looks more like Christmas and less like the Jadis the Narnia white witch ice queen lives in a castle there.)

Sorry not sorry, but I don’t wish to belong to some insecure writers support group. And yes, I actually am a writer. Maybe I won’t ever write a book, and maybe my blog won’t ever win awards, but I’m also not a lesser human being for my efforts.

The world is a big place and we should be able to express our opinions. Or even post an article we find interesting on our own Facebook timeline. I see plenty of things posted by people I like that I completely disagree with, and I don’t feel the need to comment on these things. For the most part I kind of scroll on by. If it’s some thing that I really disagree with I might send them a private message, but that’s it. I don’t pollute their timelines. I try to respect their virtual space.

2020 has been the year from hell for all of us if we’re honest. We have survived a global pandemic, but it has affected every aspect of our lives and our children’s lives and our friends lives and the lives of the people with small businesses we support. so instead of screaming a legitimate news source is fake news why don’t we try to support each other instead?

Thank you for coming along with me on this ramble this morning. I felt I needed to explore all of this because what I saw on my own timeline is happening on the Facebook timelines of people everywhere. We all don’t have to agree, we don’t even have to agree to disagree, but we need to respect people social media pages as their own kind of like a virtual house.

Celebrate the blessings that we have.

Thanks for stopping by.