As Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians are discovering of late, Democrats believe in a caste system in which anyone with the \”wrong\” opinions is treated as a second-class citizen. Apparently there are even some spineless Republicans renouncing their beliefs in order to avoid being \”unpersoned\” by the left-wing outrage mob. The rest of us are simply going to have to resign ourselves to offending people who have always hated us.
That\’s right: Ultimately, you are going to have to write people off who mistreat you or who shun you for having right-wing beliefs. That’s because a terrible swath of collateral damage has been done to this nation by contemporary progressive politics.
Where once people were encouraged to avoid topics like religion and politics in mixed company, on the grounds that this might inflame tensions, we have dropped the pretense of “mixed company” entirely. In today’s political world, there are the “correct” opinions… and there are the “wrong” opinions (held by anyone who is not progressive). Hold the wrong opinions and you are no longer presumed to have a right to those views; you are a bad person. Bad people deserve to feel bad about being bad, you see, so any amount of abuse you heap on them is justified and even required.
This is the rationalization used by people who walk through the world demanding never to be offended. Progressives don’t just believe themselves and their opinions correct by default; they believe they are entitled to positions of authority. Any dissent, any politically incorrect opinion, any challenge to their authority is out of bounds. If they lose an election, it isn’t that they lost; it’s that there’s something wrong with the system. If they see or overhear an opinion they don’t like, even accidentally, it isn’t that multiple opinions exist; it is that hatemongers are being platformed and must be stopped.
I’ve never understood why some people cannot be friends with others who disagree. I’ve never once been bothered by disagreeing, or even arguing with, someone I considered a friend. I find those conversations interesting and even stimulating. They give us a chance to hone our arguments, to refine and thoroughly understand our philosophies. They should not and cannot be threatening… IF we are secure in what we believe.
If, on the other hand, your belief system is fragile — if you aren’t entirely comfortable with it, or don’t know how to justify it with strong, logical arguments — then you will indeed consider anyone who disagrees your enemy. You will become hostile to them. You will resent them. And it won’t be long before you start encouraging everyone who agrees with you, not merely to shun and criticize and even to mistreat the dissenters… but even to attack them physically. This is our world now. It is a world where you take your life in your hands if you walk down a public street wearing a MAGA hat.
These were people who encouraged their fellow progressives to go home at Thanksgiving and Christmas and browbeat their relatives with political talking points. Failing that, the true believers were encouraged to shun their own family members (and yes, their friends), to cut from their lives anyone who has the audacity to hold Republican, conservative, or libertarian political views. The same people who shriek that they must never see an opinion with which they disagree — lest they feel offended — feel no compunction about offending, maligning, mischaracterizing, and mistreating anyone who does not share their views.
As you go about your life under Democrat rule, as you express your opinions, as you engage in politics, you must therefore remember one thing: Stop worrying about offending people who don’t care about offending you. They will always be offended, so you can’t prevent it. They will never care about whether they hurt YOUR feelings, so you needn’t consider theirs. This the sad reality of contemporary politics in America. It is decidedly double edged… yet bizarrely one-sided.
Ronald Reagan famously said, “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.” This is painfully true of most Democrats. They have been programmed, indoctrinated by media and popular culture, to believe things that simply aren’t true. The result is Democrat tyranny — the horror of Democrats ruling over you, working to destroy your freedom. We forget sometimes that the way Democrats became Democrats was through this mental conditioning.
One of the most frustrating things about interacting with people on social media — especially in mixed company of family, friends, former work acquaintances, et. al. — is the popular culture brainwashing involved. Every one of us is today awash in a relentless stream of popular culture conditioning. This conditioning takes the form of lies that, when they are repeated often enough, are believed by at least a plurality of the people you know.
It is time to stop worrying about the feelings of liars. It is time to stop being held hostage to the emotional blackmail of people who are insecure in their beliefs. It is time to stop fretting over offending people who have never given one good damn about offending you.
If you are not a progressive, this is your world now. This is reality. It will be reality for at least two years, if not four or more. Our only choice is to lower our shoulders, harden our hearts, and go forward, towards the danger.
