99-percent of Reality Check readers won’t have the guts to repost this column!

- If you love dogs, you’ll repost this!

- If you’re a REAL American, you’ll make this your profile message for one hour!

- Most people won’t have the guts to repost this message!

- If you agree that Obama is a space alien, you’ll repost this NOW!!

- Ninety-nine percent of the people here will be AFRAID to repost this IMPORTANT message!!

If you’re a Facebook user, you’ve seen these idiotic statements—and a million more just like ‘em—many times before. Your “friends”—all 600,000 of them—have an opinion, and if you don’t share that opinion, loudly and with feeling, there must be something wrong with you.

If you won’t repost their “important” message, you are obviously morally bankrupt, afraid of your own shadow, and part of the problem not the solution.

I know my “friends” feel this way, because they “challenge” me with world-shaking topics at least 35 times a day. If I support veterans, I must repost their post, the same one they reposted because someone challenged them to repost it. If I don’t have the “guts” to repost, it’s because I’m (obviously) a communist bent on the overthrow of the U.S. government.

If I don’t have the raw courage required to repost the cute puppy pictures it’s because I’m in favor of forced euthanasia for all things that travel on four legs.

Every time I fail to repost a prayer request, it’s further proof that I am a vile heathen bound for the hell fires.

Well, my friends…my dear, dear, close, personal friends, please allow me to respond to each and every reposting request now: SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE #@%$ UP!

(Please multiply the above paragraph by 10,000 and repeat it until the message sinks in. No, I do not care how long that takes.)

If your original post is worth reposting, rest assured I WILL repost it. I don’t need you to tell me how “courageous” the people who repost it are.

Speaking of which, let’s, for just a moment, take a Reality Check (patent pending, copyright 2011, etc.): IT TAKES NO—I REPEAT, NO—COURAGE TO REPOST SOMETHING ON FACEBOOK! If you honestly believe posting something online is courageous, you have obviously never done a truly brave thing in your life.

The firefighter entering a burning building is brave. The soldier going into occupied territory is brave. The cop who approaches a home knowing an armed gunman may be inside is brave.

The guy who makes the observation that “republicans are greedy” is not brave, he is opinionated. There is a difference, folks.

At what point did spreading uninformed, moronic gossip become an admirable trait in this country? You could train a chimp to do as much, assuming you could train a chimp to type.

Of course, all this is just my opinion. If it’s yours, too, repost this on your Facebook page! Unless you’re a gutless communist who hates puppies.

Contact Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.