January 13, 2009

• I was debating writing this, because in my own circles it needn't be said. I hate the culture war with slight exceptions, I do. However, I've been sticking my head in the news for far too long a period today and it got under my skin.

  As anyone who knows me would admit, socially, I'm quite liberal. You can persuade me more so economically but you'll find little luck on the social spectrum.

  So, recently, I heard someone complaining about how we view the world today. "People's morals today are just trashed". Yeah, and they totally weren't many years ago...I'm sure the Dark Ages was tons more advanced than us today morally. Open up Shakespeare, please - utter genius but the greatest source of tons of sex. And guess what - your Freshman children are reading up on sexual innuendos and sex at 18 (or so) right now (Romeo and Juliet). Now go panic and proclaim the end of the world, please.

  As one person (I'm certain it was on Revelife - continual source of intelligence coming from there) put it, "Who would have thought that today's people would decide right and wrong on what they feel?" (emphasis mine, with the possible exception of the italicism; I can't properly remember). And then I read a blog today noting how the God-awful "liberal" media makes everything seem fine if we just plaster "love" and "feelings" over it. Yes, they were tying the connection of a female teacher molesting a 13 year old male student of theirs to homosexuality (can I hear some respectable groans from the wonderful gay and bi people in the crowd??).

  You know, funny thing about that - socially liberal people (note I specifically mention socially liberal; a previous post of mine, for those who have read my xanga for a while now, helps to understand why that distinction is important) actually really like facts.

  This would happen to be why most liberals (on average) happen to be atheist in comparison to social conservatives (which, of course, makes my own piety a tad bit laughable). This would also happen to be why the higher the education you have, the more liberal you're likely to be.

  So, when we happen to say that homosexuals aren't boogie men we've created to try to tear down society...that's because the American Psychological Association actually has stated that homosexuality is rather natural and not chosen (some of your best friends are gay, you know).

  "...but rather protesting the open nature and societal acceptance of homosexuality, an orientation which many scientists view to be an a-posteriori choice." Oh, are you kidding me??
  "No, human beings cannot choose to be either gay or straight. For most people, sexual orientation emerges in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although we can choose whether to act on our feelings, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed." (http://www.apahelpcenter.org/articles/article.php?id=31).

  We haven't decided this simply because we felt it. It came upon our radar because we felt it. Then we assessed it. And we found it to not destroy entire societies (believe me, at the rate they're going, by now I have the ability to set several forests on fire, start earthquakes, and bring about the end of the world. And to think I was worried with something like clinical depression). The whole reason we're pushing words like justice, equality, and hate is because we've already passed the right/wrong portion of the class. Please, could you keep up?

  You'll have to forgive us, but we just find these following tenets common sense:
  -How someone dresses shouldn't make that big of a deal - the content of their character ought to.
  -While we have no issues with, really, any religion, we do have an issue when you want to make that one religion the law of the land. Sorry to break it to you, but you do live in a nation with many others. They deserve their rights as well.
  -Hey, we like autonomy. If they aren't harming anyone - leave 'em alone.
  -Guess what - we aren't perfect yet so to assume things should remain stagnant isn't the best thought process. If you want to take a literal description of moral conservatism, to conserve means to keep as was. That means a social conservative today would have been a major liberal in the eyes of the past. Wait...

  Now, don't get me wrong - I have rather conservative tendencies (I like to think they subside my homosexual ones...okay, even I'll admit that was a bad one). I believe in logic and reason. Following this, either extreme (liberal or conservative) could not be correct. However, social liberalism happens to be more so.

  One, I'm a Christian (which, when all is taken into account, is a really funny paradox). I'm a strong advocate of abstinence (as my concurrent rants and long streaming opinions continue to point to a somewhat extreme opinion on sex in general). I obviously believe in more conservative dress (my own clothing style is so mundane it's pitiful). I am pro-life (that's the simple answer; the actual one is a bit more complex). I'm definitely anti-gun control. I disagree with "porn booths" and the selling of porn at gas stations, though I would support continuing those running since I believe in that right (though I am willing to hear the argument that porn booths degrade the community, not to mention encourage more public sex. However, you have no real argument about the gas porn, honestly).

  The thing that separates me and makes me liberal is that with all of those (with the exception of abortion and gun control) is that I don't shove my personal opinions down someone else's throat because it's not going to hurt me. I don't care how much porn the next person buys (though I do pity them for going through that process if they have an internet connection at home - honestly, that's just stupid). I don't care how much like a jack rabbit the next person humps; I knew someone was having premarital sex in my own dorm - the girl seemed to be having a blast, from the sounds of it. But I'm not dead from the fact, yet.

  The fact is, I originally wanted to do this without attacking and just pointing out the facts of it. But, honestly, mandating prayer in school is an attack to me and, more importantly, an attack on the child who could use that school time to be learning. Maybe it's really conservative of me, but I think the family should be the source of that child's religious enstillment, not the government and certainly not the school. I find it an attack when I'm told I can't have the basic legal rights to marry and keep a job. I find it an attack when, for a country founded on the idea of free speech and allowing other ideas (no matter what we may think of them), those ideas must be restricted by my government.

  So, in short, I'm a social liberal not because I'm blazing with feeling I just cannot contain but because it doesn't insult my better intelligence.

  Also, if anything confirms the idiocy in my mind, its the phrase I found on this page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=83448ae0e58f7f86d366251132fabc3c&gid=2230733281
  "MAKE WAR NOT LOVE assholes"

  Damn, I just feel so guilt ridden and dirty now....

  Or my new favorite I just found: "They [social conservatives] do not subscribe to abstract notions such as 'reason' or 'progress'..."

  Axis_of_Doom, could you comment on that one, just for me?

  So, reverting back to the original child molesting post that drove me to this entry, the author writes, "Haven't we learned from the Beatles 'all we need is love, love is all we need'?" and then proceeds to tear down all the "liberal" ways that promoting love has diluted the topic (oh, the Beatles, those scandolous liberal bastards!). Yet somehow I have a feeling - sorry, I interpret that Lennon actually meant love when he coined the phrase. And that can lead to many things (compassion, patience, trying to understand, etc.). But I'm not going to try to explain or justify it further. If you have a brain, you ought to be able to figure it out.

  Ehh, I hate the culture war. If you want to further discuss or explore things I've written here or simply clarify, comment or private message me. I would have no doubt I didn't explain something I wrote here properly.

  • 1:50 am
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