Don't insult your friends

"If you can't ignore an insult, top it; if you can't top it, laugh it off; and if you can't laugh it off, it's probably deserved." Russell Lynes

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- We don't need to lose quality friends only because of friction and animosity during the election season.
While there are heightened emotions brought by partisan politics, a friendship can only be shattered if we insult one another especially in the social media.
We can crack jokes for the sake of discussion, but if we resort to insults and belittle our friends, egos will be bruised. Relations will turn sour.
If our friends don't support our candidates, we don't denounce them and assassinate their character for supporting another candidate. Vice versa.
Our friends don't have "poor choices" only because we don't agree with their candidates. Vice versa. 
They are not "stupid" or "idiots" for insisting that their candidates have the best and better platform of government. Vice versa. Some words hurt like daggers especially when they come from friends.
Respect begets respect. When we heap insults, they will boomerang. The law of cause and effect.

COME AND GO

Election season come and go. We keep friends, the good or quality ones, come hell or high water, if needed.
Even before Grace Poe had thought of running for president, friends have been "tagging" each other with many interesting videos, website links, quotations from Buddha and Shakespeare, etc.
Even before Mar Roxas filed his candidacy for president, friends have been swapping ideas and suggestions involving apolitical issues.
Even before Rodrigo Duterte disclosed his intention to seek the highest post of the land, friends have been "liking" each other's posts with added  emoticons.
We can always cast aspersions on the candidates we don't like. That's normal in the dirty world of politics. The candidates themselves won't mind the slander. 
Positive or negative publicity is still a publicity. Public Relations 101. 

ATTACK

Politicians are accustomed to attacks, verbal and written abuse; mockery is part and parcel of being a candidate for an elective office. 
Political rivals engage in mudslinging and pull each other down to improve their rating in the surveys.
Politics, after all, is nasty. We can't expect the voters to look up at all politicians as role models. There will always be offensive remarks and bashing in mass media.
But let's spare our friends who support or campaign for another candidate. Let's respect their choices. 
When emotions simmer down after the election of our new set of public officials from municipal council to the president, friends will always be friends.
Let's hear the speech of Abraham Lincoln: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”