This is a posting about the goofy balance that the Internet and social networking sites gives us. Sure, we exercise Freedom of Speech. But on the flip side, all of us have to hear or read your fact-less opinions. Frankly, it’s annoying as hell.

LAS VEGAS, NV (March 31, 2009) – So, I read this posting on my Facebook wall yesterday morning.

This is the hope and change that people voted on November 4, 2008. Hope everybody is happy with their decision to move this country towards socialism. Sometimes you just have to be careful what you wish for. When are people going to get that the Government works for us and not the other way around?

Linked to the posting was the story from the Chicago Sun-Times that GM CEO Rick Waggoner had been forced out by the White House.

This is where the Internet is so scary. Anybody can say anything without any repercussions or verification of what they say is true or even makes sense.

I can’t take it anymore. So here goes!

Her comment hit my Facebook wall at 7:25 am Pacific time. I mention the time since I was hurrying out the door to get to the gym so I could ride the arc-trainer and listen to President Obama’s full press conference on the auto bailout. Yet, my Facebook buddy was already sounding an opinion – based on a newspaper article — without even hearing what the President had to say? Let alone she wasn’t even in on the high-level discussions.

The internet and social networking sites have given too many of us the idea that we know a lot. We don’t. We’re certainly getting more information, but there’s too little context. Why is context missing? A couple of reasons: the first is that the information is too new; the second reason is that most of the information we receive is filtered by biased political parties and newsrooms.

Go back and read my Facebook buddy’s statement and tell me that didn’t come from a GOP talking point she heard on Fox News or talk radio. (As it turns out, she is a registered Republican.)

And furthermore, she is pumping out the old Socialism sludge dredged up by the drilling team of Rush, Hannity, and Kudlow. I wrote a lengthy piece on these gratuitous charges by these three morons and why opponents aren’t allowed to charge Republicans with Fascism.

Interestingly, my Facebook buddy proved the point of that column when I commented on her wall:

Would you rather go back to the Fascism from 2001-2008?

Her response was; “You can’t be kidding.” I was kidding — and being a wise-ass. But my point was this: if the Obama Administration is Socialist, then we lived through a few years of Fascism from the Bush White House.

A little context here: Obama is leaning left. Does that mean he’s Socialistic? No. (Even conservative economists say he should use Keynesian tactics; some say he hasn’t gone far enough. Ironically, it’s the Europeans who say he’s gone too far.) But like it or not, all you Republican-Stepfords, the Bush White House clearly leaned toward Fascism while whipping up nationalism and even spying on citizens after 9/11. Was Mr. Bush a Fascist? No, but his leanings toward Fascism were either quietly accepted or never acknowledged, as chilling as they were for some, because we had just been attacked.

Here’s my overall point to anyone blurting out their political feelings – especially now. Go ahead; it’s your right. But remember, you risk looking silly. Frankly, I shy away from people like that or, at the least, having any serious discussions. As the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “You’re entitled to your opinion, but not your facts.”

The bottom line to my Facebook friend: None of us know what we’re talking about – especially when it comes to this crisis.

The irony of extensive research is this: we learn how much we don’t know. So, I’m leery of the person who sounds like they have all the answers. Most likely, they’ve only seen one side.

Too many of us have this idea that someone like the President has the answer to the problems but he’s holding back the solution for his own devious purposes. If so, then please go back to watching 24.

Who among us knows these answers? Will the President’s bailout plan of Detroit work? Was dumping Rick Waggoner a bad move? No one knows the answer. We might not know in ten years.

Just as we put faith in Mr. Bush on fighting terrorism and then going to war in Iraq, we have to allow Mr. Obama to do the job he was asked to do. By the way, it’s in The Constitution.

Fortunately, my Facebook buddy is in the nation’s minority. The majority of people, 60%, according to a Washington Post-ABC News Poll, support the way President Obama’s handling the economy.

Do those 60% agree with everything he’s doing? I doubt it. I’ll bet they’re just as frightened of decades of debt as the Obama naysayers. But the difference is they’re letting the man do his job.

Sure, if he fails, then we have something to complain about – and a chance to vote him out. But we won’t know the results of his policies for at least a year or more.

Ironically, while listening to the president that morning, I thought he took an investor’s approach to the bailout. As the representative of the people’s money, he was saying, in my words now, if I’m going to invest in you, you need to do a lot more, because I want to make some profits for my investors. It’s strange that more Republicans – the party of big business – don’t see it that way.

I hate looking back for analogies, but the cacophony of partisanship against Obama is much louder and annoying today than the noise we heard about going to war in Iraq in 2003. And this economic crisis, I think, is just as serious as or worse than the War in Iraq.

So, before you write or speak out, try to at least acknowledge another side of the story.