I am passionate about causes, I am passionate about justice and believe that everyone should be allowed to have a day in court without the conviction of the court of public opinion. I also believe that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, some times those pursuits require someone to use an adequate level of force to batter their way through the walls and barriers stopping them. Ultimately through I enjoy watching the circus that erupts on social media when something news worthy is happening.

Yesterday I invited several of my friends from across the political spectrum to engage on my Facebook page in a discussion regarding a trial that started in Kenosha Wisconsin. This particular trial holds meaning for me as the defendant is a young person who had aspirations of being in the Emergency Services field and was carrying a gun at a large protest, events happened and he ended up shooting 3 people and killing 2 of them. for me this mirrored my own life, I have always wanted to be an emergency services worker, and if I was in the same situation I would have likely had a firearm with me, could I have been placed in that situation and could I have resorted to a firearm if threatened? I have been wrestling with that question for awhile, I have been trained in many forms of de-escalation, hand to hand, and yes gun fighting.

I posted this and I had the usual folks start responding, here is a secret, I don’t actually consider a lot of the people on my Facebook feed as actual friends, more contacts that provide goods or services I may need, my circle of real friends is significantly small I quickly realized that my goal of a vigorous debate with a select group of friends had been dashed when I posted publicly, but never being one to back down from a vigorous debate I kept the settings and waded into the vitriolic waters that was my social media feed. I rapidly realized that the situation had gone downhill very quickly, unfortunately I was also writing a paper for school and participating in a classroom discussion so I couldn’t monitor the feed. but when I went back I realized that the post had gone completely off the rails.

Then I started getting the messages from people trying to have the aha moment or a gotcha moment with me, now I was not a happy camper, but i ignored them none the less. Then one of my inner ring friends reached out to tell me how disappointed they were in me for supporting a murderer. This kind of struck me as odd, because as far as I knew my post had solely been about the start of the trial and my thoughts on how this might effect other self defense cases as well as how it may shape laws around how people who protest are treated, in my own state there was a bill introduced that would hold harmless anyone who struck a pedestrian on a highway, it didn’t get out of committee but it was brought up and similar bills around the country did get passed. I attempted to explain my stance but to no avail, they are very far of left politically and they get an idea and it becomes un movable for them.

So I removed the post, seemed the easiest way to stop the fighting and will simply watch the trial and avoid discussing it with anyone, I’m used to that. Today a former family friend now more of an acquaintance decided to continue his attack via messenger, honestly this person has become bitter and attacks my friends, so like the ones before I put his messages on mute so I wont get alerts and can decide if I wish to speak to them or not. I don’t like doing this I don’t enjoy losing friends, but I also don’t need these people in my life causing me strife.