One Giant Game of Telephone

The United States Congress has only a 13% approval rating.

Tonight was an educational experience. For the first time in a while, I engaged in facebook argument with a friend about something of the political nature. Thirteen hours ago my friend posted an emotionally charged outcry, which at about one hour ago I responded to with an equally emotionally charged comment. We went back and forth for the good part of the past hour, bringing a culmination of feelings and fact into the debate. We argued, we challenged one another, we cited our personal experiences.

At the end of all of it, we discovered that the article of news in question was a fake. A simple lie made up by some unknown force. We were happy, because although we were on different sides of the argument, the event in question really sucked for everyone involved.

Time to get hokey (not that I wasn’t already headed in that direction). We engaged one another in political discourse for an hour. And it was all moot. The question at hand was a non-issue. But I learned a lot about this friend, and about the issue. I hope in some way that he learned a little from me too. And together we sorted the fact from fiction. Two twenty-something kids living on opposite sides of the country with vastly-different life experiences just got more accomplished than the United States Congress: we had a political discussion that ended with the discovery of truth.

So go forth and discuss, argue, yell, research and challenge each other. Otherwise the world is just one giant game of telephone.