I will not push back on soap-box issues because, unfortunately, too many folks have uttered the line, "x issue is life and death for me and cannot be debated".

I will not push back on soap-box issues because, unfortunately, too many folks have uttered the line, "x issue is life and death for me and cannot be debated". I get that feeling, because my groups issues are like that for me, however my groups issues aren't of such popularity that I don't have to witness people doing exactly that. It's quite a frustrating paradigm, especially when your political allegiances land you among folks who have quite rich opinions about people of said group and the institutions around them (at times.) All in all, I don't miss the news or politics. I hear about important things and am still "informed" just by the virtue of having a pretty eclectic group of friends. For instance, I heard about the rocket attacks on Israel because part of my team is in Israel. That prompted me to read the entire wikipedia article on this topic, which was illuminating in giving me a fact-based understanding; however what I lack is an opinion. What I don't get is the every day reminders of issues x, y, or z while seeing my groups issues ignored or deprioritized and when friends do this (probably inadvertently) I'm able to tolerate it because I hear it less.