Maybe it’s the fact it’s Election Day … or maybe it’s because of certain issues arising in someone’s life, but I’m going to take a more civilized approach to things today. I’ll return to my normal, sarcastic, news-attacking self tomorrow.
If you saw my post on Facebook about the Obama situation in which he referred to Republicans as “enemies,” you have an idea of where this is going. But I can go more in depth here than I can there.
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As a whole, society has been conditioned to look at things in the wrong way. We have to put labels on everything. It’s actually kind of sickening in the grand scheme of things. Think about the labels we apply to everything anymore (some are black vs. white, some are used to categorize people for discrimination): Democrat or Republican; Gay or Straight; Heterosexual, Homosexual, Bi-Sexual; Homophobic …. I could go on and on.
Here’s what I’ve learned – it’s not that simple. It’s not black or white. It’s not us vs. them. It’s not right or wrong. It’s truthfully unfair to pigeonhole someone based on labels. Labels are just that – something put on the outside to identify something. They should be reserved for the grocery aisles and not likened to people. The decisions we make, the things we believe, are not as simple as picking up one brand over another. It’s a shame it’s been reduced to this.
Here are a couple examples …
I am a registered Republican. I admit it. I make no secret about my distaste for Obama. There, now that I have that out of my system, I don’t agree with every Republican ideal. Nor do I agree with most of the Democratic ideals. In all truth, a friend told me I fit more along the lines of Libertarian – and whereas he might be right, I really don’t want to assign any party to my beliefs. The only reason I’m registered Republican is because of the closed primary system in Kentucky. I don’t want a label – I don’t want people to discount my intelligence, or lump me in with other rigid-Republicans, when I’m not. I don’t make political decisions based on party. I make them based on what I believe is right or wrong. That being said, I believe some of the things the Democrats believe. I believe (as it turns out) in almost everything the Libertarians believe. I believe some of the things Republicans believe. But I do not want a label assigned to those beliefs. I believe these things because of my personal experiences, and the desires I have to see certain things happen to make life better for me and my family. It has nothing to do with a certain party taking power (though, I have made the joke that my goal in voting today was solely to oust the Democrats from power), it has to do with, “who will make the decisions that best align with the future I want for my kid?”
Okay, how about this one – a family member is wrestling with the term “lesbian.” It’s clinical, it doesn’t accurately reflect who she is. Why do we need that term? Don’t we all want to fall in love and have someone there to share our lives – our trials, our triumphs, our frustrations – with? (Yes, I know that sentence was grammatically incorrect. But it sounded better ending on “with” than to word it otherwise.) If, in the grand scheme of things, we are all looking for the same thing, why do we need to apply a label? Don’t be bound the restrictions that come with the words. In the end, that’s all they are, just words. Be who you are, love who you want, accept who you are, and screw the rest. (Much love, L.R.)
A friend of mine mentioned there is biological evidence that we are programmed to think in black or white. I found a few studies in a quick online search that supports that. If, though, evolution is real (which, speaking of, is another classic example of what I’m talking about), why can’t our minds evolve enough to accept more than just two options, that someone has to be right and therefore someone has to be wrong? (In case you care, no, I don’t believe that we came about as a result of evolution – but I do believe that we evolve to adapt to the changes in our surroundings, or else we would have died off a long time ago. Which is why I believe it’s entirely possible, though nowhere near remotely plausible, for our minds to evolve to accept a different perspective.)
Sigh.
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