There are times when I wonder if Web 2.0 is taking us to a level of public exposure previously only known to politicians, porn stars, and Madonna.  Thanks to the wonder of Facebook (and, I suppose, Twitter, which I haven’t joined because I’m not vain enough to think anyone is interesting in knowing if I’m standing in line at the grocery store), we now have 24 hour access to deep thoughts.

The question of whether the thoughts are actually deep and may be better left unexpressed is one that I think that some ought to ask themselves (although, in full disclosure, I certainly didn’t ask myself that before I sat down to write this here post).  There are, among my acquaintances, many people who comment on every single thing that their Facebook “friends” do all day long.  Some comments are amusing, others are … well, clearly not as amusing as their authors think they are.

The ubiquity of Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social networking means that it’s now possible to create an entire online persona that you can drag with you hither and yon.  Your Yahoo! account can be linked to your Flickr, which is now linked to Twitter, and Google now knows more about you than the federal government, and all of them can be linked to Facebook.  Facebook, if you’re not careful, can also track what you buy on Amazon and rent from Blockbuster or Netflix.  This means that if you rate a movie that you rented on Blockbuster, the netsavvier among us can find within a frighteningly short amount of time those embarrassing photos that your coworker took at the office Christmas party of you pretending to be Smiling Bob from the “natural enhancement” commercials.

My friend Michael has pointed out on occasion that there are clearly people with nothing to do all day who lurk about on the InterWebz and leave bizarre comments on any public forum that invites comment.  Austin is a fairly liberal town.  You wouldn’t know this by reading the online edition of our alleged “newspaper” [sic], the Austin American-Statesman (which, on a side note, was up for sale for 18 months and has been taken off the market because no one wanted to buy it).

The Statesman did this weird thing where it invited readers to form their own blogs and comment on the news — it’s to the point where I can’t actually read the online edition anymore.  Global warming is a man-made myth.  The president was born on Mars (funny, I was pretty sure that was a reference to Lady Gaga).  And any time an article pops up about gay … well, gay anything, the Bible thumpers turn up and start screaming about Satan (see: Barack Obama).  Someone actually told Michael to go back where he came from, Commie.

It’s enough to make you want to pull out your old government book and read aloud the definition of “socialism.”  Kids, do you want to know some countries that are socialist?  Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.

I’m guessing this is all because the sane people have day jobs and don’t have time to sit around and write ultra right wing conspiracy shit all over the Internet, let alone create a fake Kenyan birth certificate for the president … and can I just ask — what, exactly, is the birther movement trying to do?  If you don’t like Obama, fine (I’ll admit, the enchantment has worn off for me, too) but for gawd’s sake, why is it necessary to be coming up with all of these ridiculous stories about how he’s not really American?  Are we really supposed to believe that his parents faked his birth certificate in 1961 because they knew that he was going to run for president 48 years later?  Because if they did, I’d like their phone number — I want to run some stock options by them and see which ones they like.

I know, I know: this is America, and we have freedom of speech.  However, just because we have freedom of speech doesn’t mean we should always feel the need to use it.  Sometimes the best thing to do is realize that you don’t have anything important to say … and then not say it.

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