I don’t give a rats-ass how you’ll be voting, it ain’t gonna make me change my mind. Please people, keep it to yourself!

This is just the latest comment on my Facebook timeline, berating those who want to make political comment, with a UK general election less than a week away.

I made the decision a few weeks ago, after similar comments and even threats of being unfollowed and even unfriending, to halt all political comment on Facebook. But do I agree with doing this? No. However, as my Facebook posts are only directed at friends and family, and they mean more to me than making political jibes, I felt this was what I wanted to do.

But it’s a terrible shame. As my friend Gina said in response to the above comment…

Voting is the most important thing most of us ever do for our society. We should be promoting free speech and healthy debate, not telling people to shut up just because they don’t agree with us.

At a time when so many people are disengaged from politics, making decisions based upon bad facts and fake news (or The Daily Mail, as I prefer to call it 😉) it’s a shame that people don’t want to engage in such important debate with the people closest to them – the people they are more likely to trust judgment of.

It’s such a shame though, where friends and family would much rather share frivolous cat videos than have a serious, adult discussion about the future of our country.

However, the above got more bizarre when the person was pressed as to why they didn’t want any Facebook debate, because they said it wasn’t that but those who had changed their profile pictures to show their voting choices. That was the ONE thing I’d done, politically. What a bizarre thing to have issue with – nobody making any points, requesting discussion, just showing a simple statement of intent. As much as I try, I think I’ll never understand some people.

So, what do you do – keep politics away from Facebook or piss off your friends? I’m sure many would still go down the latter route, but it’s a personal decision to make. It’s a shame, though, that it’s a decision that has to be made at all. In my case, I leave my politics to my Twitter account, which has become my outlet instead.