A right-wing troll who thought he was getting the better of me in a debate about “how liberals are forcing their views on everyone” said, “Oh yeah? Well, how many genders do you think there are anyway?”
I replied, “I don’t know and I don’t care. If people want to call themselves whatever gender they want or no gender at all, it doesn’t affect me in the slightest and I’ll call them whatever they want to be called because it makes them happy. The real question is: Why do you care?”
And that’s what a lot of conservative philosophy is about, isn’t it? Forcing everyone to live by their standards for things that don’t affect them personally in the slightest? Making everyone conform to what they believe?
“We don’t like abortions so you can’t have any. We don’t like gay marriage so you can’t get married. We believe in prayer in schools so you have to say our prayers. We think marijuana is bad so you can’t have any.”
Just leave us alone already. So many fights between liberals and conservatives would be over if they’d just leave us the fuck alone.
Be that guy
And before someone chimes in with “but liberals want to force us to do things all the time!” allow me to point out that those things do affect us. Your guns affect us. Giving you health care does affect all of us. Having good environmental policy does affect us.
What we’re not doing is passing laws telling you that you have to live your personal life according to our rules.
When conservatives talk about “freedom,” what they often really mean is “freedom to not have to do anything I don’t like” and “freedom to discriminate”: “Why is government telling me I have to serve gay people who I can’t stand? Why do they think they can regulate the environment so that I can’t burn my trash? Why do I have to pay taxes? Get the government off my back!”
Basically, conservatives want government off our backs in business and economic matters only (so they can get richer) but love having government involved in moral issues. Liberals want the exact opposite. We want government off our backs in moral issues but want government involvement in economics. And that’s because economics does affect us all.
And it’s all because they don’t like people who are different. They’d be thrilled if the entire country was white, Christian and straight. Anyone who steps out from the roles they want us to be in has to be criticized by them.
So don’t let any conservative try to tell you that you have to live your life according to their rules about how you should act, who you should love, what you should dress like, or anything that does not affect them personally. That’s what real freedom is.
ventrellaquest.com 