Topics (Mostly) Off Limits

There are two topics I generally avoid on this blog and on Facebook. They are religion and politics. You know the old adage, and I follow it fairly closely in cyberspace, be it in my original posts and musings, or in response to others'.

I don't really have one main reason; rather, it's a combination of many. I'm going to list several contributing factors, but please understand that none of these account for more than 33% of my reasoning, and some may contribute less than 1%:

1- I might lose friends, who of course aren't real friends if they can't accept me for blah blah blah...
2- A decision-maker holding my career fate may find it, and worse, may not like it.
3- Simply put, I'm non-confrontational.
4- Some people are so clueless, that it's not worth the bother to do it even for the sake of interesting conversation (I almost said "stimulating intercourse," but that could have been taken wrongly).
5- The cyber world is so public and permanent. That just makes me a little uncomfortable. Oh sure, writing about my passion for watching televised bowling, including 30-year-old archived footage of the PBA tour on YouTube, does not. Go figure.
6- I have a few "closeted" beliefs that might shock people close to me, and their hearts might be weak.
7- Things in writing are far more likely to be taken out of context later, and become far from the true spirit of what I've said. It's better to talk such things through, so you can clear up any possible misconceptions right then and there.
8- My friends have diverse ideas, and I try to respect them all.
9- It invites trolls.
10- It invites non-trolls, but ones who think they are making a sound argument, yet have little idea as to where critical thinking and logic begin.

There's probably more, but they start to overlap. (See nos. 10 and 4 above, for example.)

I will offer this glimpse into my political leanings: As a social liberal and fiscal conservative, I'm no "Capital L" Libertarian either. I tend to be more socially liberal than fiscally conservative. I don't mind paying a little too much tax to help welfare recipients, even if some are "working" the system, because I know that some truly need the safety net. (I don't buy the argument that charity would be enough.)

Put another way, I get less upset about a welfare mom having another kid than I do a philandering politician trying to keep gays from marrying because of some "sanctity of marriage" nonsense.

But don't think that it's not a close contest between the two in vying for my contempt.