two sentences

I have been using Facebook less than three years, but already it is a significant part of my life. I generally think that Facebook, and social networking in general, has more positives than negatives. If there is one thing that I seriously dislike about the site, though, it is that it is causing me to lose some respect for some people because of their political comments.

This isn't about agreeing with me. This is about the nuance that is lost or ignored in a two sentence status update. Real, controversial political issues usually have multiple, intricate facets that require in-depth understanding in order to have an informed opinion. What I am used to seeing on Facebook is one or two sentences that amount to little more than an ad homonym attack on whoever might disagree with the commenter with zero appreciation for those aspects of the issue that conflict with his or her position. Let me provide a fictional example of what I am talking about.

The hot political issue as of late has been whether the Bush tax cuts should be extended in full. On the one end you'll have people who boil it down to, "The rich already pay more taxes and taxes damage job growth." On the other end you'll have people who rebut, "The income gap is extraordinarily high and the Bush tax cuts are far more expensive as a whole than the Obama healthcare plan." Of course, they'll say it more condescendingly, frequently make erroneous claims along the way, and make appeals to concepts like liberty or equity, but that's the gist of it.

The tax issue is actually far more complex than this, though. Whether the individuals making the most money should see their tax cuts extended is part of a much larger philosophical question where each side has enormous pitfalls and some advantages as well. A very scant few of the comments that you see on Facebook relating to a political topic like this will even allude to how complex this is.

On the pro-tax-cut side, if you are being consistent the only way you can justify keeping all of the tax cuts is to take a hatchet to all government programs, including the military. You have to be willing that some people who rely on the current system (welfare, health, education, etc) will suffer extraordinarily and many will die for the greater good of the economy as a whole. Finally, you have to acknowledge that an increasing gap between the most wealthy and least wealthy individuals in a society frequently leads to instability in that society (think France in the late 1700s or Russia in the early 1900s) and that we as a nation might be headed that direction.

On the anti-tax-cut side, if you are being consistent you have to acknowledge that you are expecting a very small portion of the populace to bear almost all of the financial burden of the government system. You have to acknowledge that a percentage (no one really agrees on what the percentage is) of small employers are taxed as high earners and that the taxes will diminish new hiring to some degree as a result. Finally, you have to acknowledge that you are sacrificing a level of economic performance for the economy as a whole and incentive to work and innovate in order to assure that the bottom earners have an increased quality of life.

This is even forgetting the fact that this is part of a larger question of what a proper overhaul of the tax system should look like, and who should bear the brunt of those changes. Arguing about the tax cuts is sort of a way to sidestep the more complicated structural questions.

In conclusion, I wouldn't want to live in a Libertarian, Conservative, Socialist, or Liberal paradise with the serious drawbacks that they all bring, but that is exactly what two-sentence statuses ultimately advocate. That is why I do not like most political comments on Facebook.