There are few people these days that are not on Facebook.  It’s a great way to share photos, interests, and everyday events with friends and family.  Ever since the 2008 presidential election, I have also used Facebook as my main tool for sharing my political motivations by changing my status to reflect where I stand on an issue and by sharing links to blogs and articles that I think are particularly eye-opening.  Lately, however, I am doubting this is an effective means of persuasion.  Sometimes my postings illicit general agreement, other times bitter resentment towards my obvious stupidity on a subject, but most often nothing.  I’m more likely to get a rousing response if I share my failed attempts at making no-bake cookies. . .   On a site where sharing trivial and mundane information is the norm, it is fruitless to try to influence others on topics that have more serious implications.  I realized that my convictions were being misunderstood and perhaps even mocked when I was talking to a friend who, not interested in hearing my observation on a political matter, interrupted to tell me to “just go write about it on Facebook.”

While cyberspace has made it easier to share information with everyone near and far, the culture that has erupted from this continues to take its toll on the quality of the information being shared.  Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become the battlefield for who can win the most attention, and the winners almost always have little educational or uplifting values to their merit.

When political or philosophical content does get shared online, the conversation that follows also reflects the same trends.  Those who like it root for their beloved politician with a “Go So-and-so!” while those who disagree call you a hatemonger.  The conversations on political forums are full of heated emotion but lacking in open-minded and persuasive dialogue.

It is clear to me that sharing our beliefs and values through solely the internet will never be able to have the influence that our voices were meant to have in a republic.  The Founding Fathers never could have imagined the technology that is available to us today, but it doesn’t mean that their ideas are outdated or old-fashioned.  If anything, their concept of representation through a republic is exactly the medicine that can counteract this virus that has diseased our culture.

I’m old enough now to see how our technological culture is affecting our youth today.  When I graduated from high school almost ten years ago, cell phones were only affordable to wealthy businessmen.  Today, few teenagers are without a cell phone or an ipod, and many have access to the web from both of those devices.  But these devices mean we’re spending less time reading, less time thinking, less time talking to one another, and less time serving and learning about our community.  Access to entertaining but anemic information has made much more meaningful endeavors seem boring or old-fashioned.  If you, like me, believe that there is a cultural attack on family, moral virtue, and the Constitution, do we want to  send our children out into battle without properly preparing them with the armor that will protect those virtues?

My conclusion is that the only way to combat the effects of technology on our culture is three-fold:

1) Spend more time reading and educating ourselves on the principles of the Constitution. The 5000 Year Leap by Cleon Skousen is an excellent place to begin.

2) Make conversations about politics more personal. The best place to start is in our own families.  Find ways to make the conversation interesting to our children.  For example, seniors in high school may find politics more interesting if they understand how laws passed by Congress are affecting the price of their future tuition.  You can use similar ways to share your ideas with your friends.  A goal of Liberty Discussions is to do just that: make the conversation more personal as we teach and learn from one another.

3) Find more persuasive methods to use the internet to share your educated opinions. My husband and I designed Liberty Discussions to not only promote person-to-person conversation and problem solving but also to be a place to report and gather the lessons we are learning and the actions we are taking.  I know that you have unique and creative ways to address the concerns that many Americans share.  That’s why you were invited to the site by either us or your friends!  By reporting back through your group blogs, we here in Cincinnati can learn what topics people in Idaho learned about, the solutions they devised, and how they took action through their representative republic.  By so doing, we can be models of the kind of persuasive and thorough communication that is possible and can inspire others by our efforts, even online!

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