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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe "Special Snowflake" Syndrome of American Conservatives
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/06/1376057/-The-Special-Snowflake-Syndrome-of-American-ConservativesThe "religious freedom" debacles in Indiana and Arkansas have illustrated a lot of important points lately. The big one, of course, is that we as a society are moving past the point where it is socially acceptable to harbor animus toward another human being because of their sexual orientation, and try to find refuge in the law for discriminatory impulses that arise from that animus.
But there's another important one that should not be overlooked. It's the religious far-right's "special snowflake" syndrome. That's really what the entire conversation is about: conservative Christians thinking that because they believe God sanctions their particular brand of bigotry, they're special snowflakes who shouldn't be retrained by human decency, much less the pesky laws that the rest of us are obliged to follow. If you hate hard enough, the rules don't apply to you.
Because you are a special snowflake, who really, really believes in what you're doing; your feelings about something make you so special that the law just ceases to apply to special little you.
And it's not like conservatives are going too far out on a limb in believing this. In some measure we've come to accept that belief should excuse you from following the law, even as it impacts others. With, for instance, Hobby Lobby, we see a shift toward the idea that your beliefs, even if factually wrong, simply exempt you from the law -- even when, in practice, that has an impact on other people. We've moved away from the sensible idea that a person shouldn't be held to laws that conflict with his beliefs where exemption won't have an impact on others, to a world where religion is a valid excuse to get out of such obviously necessary things as driver's licensing rules. So we've gone from "your career won't be ruined for using a prohibited substance in your religious ceremony" to "you don't have to provide health care coverage for medicine you don't like". Religion and religious belief has become the trump card: having a belief about something, in a sense, did make you a special snowflake, and you could get away with all sorts of things, regardless of the impact on other people, by virtue of how special you wer
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The "Special Snowflake" Syndrome of American Conservatives (Original Post)
eridani
Apr 2015
OP
The truth is that they don't believe anything at all. They simply want to be able to discriminate
world wide wally
Apr 2015
#1
world wide wally
(21,751 posts)1. The truth is that they don't believe anything at all. They simply want to be able to discriminate
against anyone they feel like discriminating against, and they want protection and special rights to do that.
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)6. This is it exactly
Religion is something people hide their bigotry and asshattery behind in order to give it a sort of official status other than bigotry and asshattery.
gordianot
(15,242 posts)2. "Special Snow Flake" an excellent description.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)3. Especially when "special snowflake"-status is based on mere lip-service to the belief.
"Can you prove that you have this religious belief?"
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)4. Conservatives believe essentially in nothing but themselves.
"I want people to sit up and take notice, to prevent them from idling away and wasting their lives. Aristocrats take it for granted that a lot of people will always go to waste. But they keep silent about it; they live sheltered lives pretending that all these many, many people simply do not exist. That is what is ungodly about the superior status of the aristocrats; in order to be comfortable themselves they do not even call attention to anything." -- Søren Kierkegaard
nikto
(3,284 posts)5. We can know the Religious Right by their own placards...