Make My Day

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If you are unwise enough to be on one or another social medium, you will have read something like this: "If you want to disagree with my futile ill-thought out and clumsily expressed opinion on X Y or Z, go ahead and make my day. I can't wait to unfriend you"?

 Do you ever wonder what is going on in someone's mind, when he issues such a  taunt?   I automatically unfriend such people, even if I agree with their position. I no longer have to teach low-achieving American adolescents with exaggerated opinions of themselves.  I am speaking of the early 1980's.  Now it is most people under 70.  

I am also tempted to unfriend anyone who takes the pseudo-Olympics seriously.  Go ahead, disagree with me.  Prove me wrong!  MAKE MY DAY!!! 

I should have put the above in large bold fafe sans serifs with a magenta background.

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Thomas Fleming

Thomas Fleming is president of the Fleming Foundation. He is the author of six books, including The Morality of Everyday Life and The Politics of Human Nature, as well as many articles and columns for newspapers, magazines,and learned journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Greek from the College of Charleston. He served as editor of Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture from 1984 to 2015 and president of The Rockford Institute from 1997-2014. In a previous life he taught classics at several colleges and served as a school headmaster in South Carolina

5 Responses

  1. Allen Wilson says:
    August 2, 2021 at 3:05 am

    I can’t help but agree. That’s one reason I usually look at FB only to see something that I’m following and just ignore almost all posts from my “friends”. What about those who make posts bragging about what, to use a more polite word, “jerks” they are? The word they actually use starts with an “a”. Many of them really are.

    I was going to migrate from FB to Gab or Parler but lost interest altogether.

  2. Ken Rosenberger says:
    August 2, 2021 at 7:18 am

    A friend who uses social media for business & was banned from FB for telling the truth, describes Parler as a very “coffined” experience. Gab & Rumble seem not as slick as their woke counterparts, but I suppose those who live by social media had better get used to it.

  3. Michael Strenk says:
    August 2, 2021 at 1:14 pm

    Are there “Olympic” competitions this year?

  4. Vince Cornell says:
    August 3, 2021 at 10:12 pm

    It makes me think of King Tirian’s advice in “The Last Battle.”
    “Do not scold, like a kitchen-girl. No warrior scolds. Courteous words or else hard knocks are his only language.”
    .
    That being said, I confess, in my weaker moments, I enjoy giving a well earned tongue lashing, but I try to at least make the insults both original and somewhat entertaining. And now-a-days there’s just too many legal entanglements with giving hard knocks, although it would be my preferred corrective measure in many instances.
    .
    It’s a good thing I don’t get out of the house much.

  5. Dom says:
    August 3, 2021 at 10:24 pm

    Always scold, courteously, first. It is more charitable and far less painful. Just be ready- that is, don’t scold unless you are willing – to back it up with hard knocks.