Many of my family members and friends have logged off of Facebook permanently. I have thought about doing the same. The main reason I would leave is that opening Facebook has become like turning on the news. I find myself beginning to respond to a barrage of political posts and thinking of starting to share my (sarcasm) expert, informed, righteous, justified, brilliant, etc. views of my own.

Here is the frightening observation that has sent a wave of terror through my entire existence. Watching mobs on television, hearing about riots on the radio or reading about it online or in the newspaper tends to give one a sense of security as we might think to ourselves, well those poor bastards live in the cities or in other countries or with desperate situations. However, on Facebook these mobs are my friends and not just people friended on Facebook or other social media outlets but friends I spend time with every so often or play music with or maybe run into at events or reunions. Some of these people I have known for decades.

In no way am I diminishing their rights as Americans to be angry, frightened, frustrated even desperate in the times we live in. However, I am horrified by how their personalities are gradually being altered to rage, hostility, hatred, intolerance, contempt and any other characteristic that defines the mentality of a mob. They might feel justified, validated, and in some cases, righteous, in which they every right to blame politicians, businesses, other countries, “pandemics” and diseases, the economy, opposite opinions, racial inequality, other nationalities, terrorists, other religions or faiths etc. for the state of the world. No they aren’t going out and burning buildings, tearing down monuments or killing other people but in my observation, they seem to be changing.

Everyone who knows me is aware that I am not only capable of joining and thinking like a mob but being one of the worst and destructive, even evil members of a mob. That’s a path I could probably never return from. So, assuming this may someday be all over and everyone can go to ball games, have BBQ’s, get together as friends and families, have events and reunions, even if there is virtually little evidence that this even happened, how would we view each other? For me, this is what elevates this situation from horrifying to whatever is above being horrified, and that is I don’t know. I have no answer. Can we just switch off our memories and continue with business as usual? Possibly in the days before social media when it was “those other people” perpetrating physical atrocities. But verbal atrocities on Facebook? I just don’t know.

In closing, I’m not expecting answers or wisdom. I guess in the final analysis all of this is probably going to play out as it should and all we can do is define ourselves as we ride this through this part of history. I’m going to attach some video clips to this article for no other reason except to express this in the stories of another who may have been feeling just like this when he wrote them. I ask myself, do I have an agenda by writing this article? I guess that depends on who is reading it.

Attached video clips: Clip-1 Clip-2 Clip-3 Clip-4 Clip-5 Clip-6