By George, I think I've got it!

I was sitting here reading the Sunday paper and got to thinking about Syria and the current problem the USA is having with dealing with it.  It occurs to me that is it very similar (on a way smaller scale) to the grandparent problem I had on Facebook.

I don't care about revealing all my most deepest and darkest thoughts on Facebook but I do enjoy looking at all the pictures and seeing what is going on with family and friends that I don't see on any type of regular basis.  Here's the rub - two of my grandsons were posting inappropriate remarks.  I also felt that one (12 years old at the time) had "friends" that he had no business having.  Any adult that he friended should have been a family member or a parent of an actual friend of his.  Looking at his list of 300+ people, I found a few that did not meet my criteria. 

Now I had to decide if I should get on to them myself, alert their mother, or ignore what was going on.  I did try each "remedy" and then began to feel like the "Facebook Police".  I didn't like the feeling and found out they didn't like it either.  Telling their mother was another problem because I was again policing their pages and being uncomfortable once again.

Choosing to ignore what was happening was a choice but not one that made me feel comfortable.  I felt that if I knew what was going on and didn't speak up then it was actually speaking that the behavior was acceptable and it was not.  I sure didn't want the kids to think I approved in any way of their choice of words or topics.  So my solution was to send a message to each of them and to their mother.  My message stated my discomfort with what was happening and that my solution was going to be that I unfriended them.  I knew I would miss seeing what was happening with them but the stress would be hugely lessened.

Where I find the similarity (although it's a stretch) is that the USA knows that what Syria has done is totally unacceptable and we do not approve.  We have choices to express this disapproval.  We can address Syria directly, we can address the other countries in the world, or we can ignore their actions.  Unfortunately we won't be able to send a message and unfriend them - would that we could.