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This is an expanded version of an essay I posted a few days ago, so don't be surprised if you recognize some of it. I think it covers more territory than the original, and makes a clearer point.
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"Mind Your Own Goddamn Business"
The Right Wing, particularly the representatives of the religious sort, are always telling us what to do and what to think. They make being gay a moral choice, and attack such wide-ranging things as Harry Potter books, heavy metal music, and role-playing games as "tools of the devil." They're quite happy to legislate morality any time they get the chance, as if laws are going to stop people from doing what they're going to do. It doesn't stop killers, it doesn't stop drug dealers, and it sure as hell isn't going to stop someone from being gay.
I don't need anyone to tell me what to think. Shove your cross in my face and I'm liable to get a bit annoyed. I don't believe it, but I don't really give a damn if someone else does. If someone tries to bludgeon me with their bible, I WILL tell them what I think about the book. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, the bible seems little more than mythology, excuses for cruelty, and pretense. If you are to believe the Old Testament, their God was a sociopathic monster, and his chosen rulers and prophets (Elisha, anyone?) were little, if any, better.
The New Testament redeems that a little, but it's still difficult to believe any of it, considering it wasn't written by the people who they SAY it was written by, and not one account of Christ's life or death even in the same book is the same as any other.
But this article isn't supposed to be about religion. It's about people forcing people to behave in a certain way through legislative arm-twisting. It's about the farce that's the drug war, it's about giving gays the rights they deserve, and it's about leaving others their otherness.
For me this whole "liberal" thing is about allowing people to think what they will, and, in extension, do as they will, assuming it doesn't harm someone who didn't consent to that harm in some fashion. I would no more snatch the cigarette out of a smoker's mouth than I'd break down a door to stop a couple from engaging in S&M games in the privacy of their own bedroom. Even if the latter does creep me out a little.
There are certain behaviors that we are completely justified trying to discourage through social interaction and, even, to a limited extent, by using the media to push a message. Just as there are behaviors we want to encourage in much the same way. But we should ALWAYS consider very carefully the very notion that we may force people to comply through the threat of physical force that lies at the base of every law. The whole, "if you do not obey, we will FORCE you to obey" thing.
I understand that a lot of people look to the "greater" good and I suppose that's okay. But there are two things we should always keep in mind when considering whether or not implementing such legislation would be a good idea. The first is "how can this be turned, by ignorance or malice, against the people it's meant to protect?" and the second is "Is it even possible to enforce it?"
The first is an issue because too many times we've seen what appeared to be good ideas pushed to their ultimate conclusion, like "zero tolerance" policies that, rather than helping, harm the very people they're meant to help.
The second is an issue because laws that cannot be (or are not) enforced simply encourage disdain for the law in general. It's counter-productive to create laws that people, even the ones intended to enforce them, will not respect.
A third consideration is HOW a law might be enforced. We come up with environmental protection laws and yet those who break these laws get away with what amounts to paltry fines that are less than they'd have to pay if they comply. If they don't do the job they're intended to do, for whatever reason, either strike them from the books and try again, or put the effort into enforcing them in an effective way that addresses the problem realistically. I think laws that don't do the job they're meant to do are not only pointless, but dangerous.
I believe some regulation of industry is necessary, because anything that's stated purpose is the pursuit of profit has every motivation to ignore anything that may get in the way of that purpose, whether or not it's for the greater good. As licensees of the government (We, the People), they are ethically bound, in my interpretation, to act for the greater good and, if unwilling to do so, must be forced to do so. This, in my estimation, is perhaps the most valid purpose of government. To protect society as a whole and prevent those with the most potential to endanger it from doing so without serious consequences.
The regulation of individual behavior, beyond the criminalization of obviously detrimental behaviors such as murder, theft (in all its myriad forms), assault, rape, arson, and all other forms of direct anti-social activity, is perfectly reasonable in my estimation. Not only reasonable, but a necessity for the smooth interaction of people within a society.
What we must avoid, however, is allowing convoluted lines to be drawn from cause to alleged effect, and acting upon what might well be baseless assumptions. It is this type of thinking that leads some people to believe that gays want to "infect" society and turn more people gay. No, they just want to be able to enter into state-approved contracts with their partners so they cannot be barred from equal participation by those who take issue with their orientation. It is also this line of thinking that puts hundreds of thousands of people in prison for non-violent offenses involving the use and distribution of unapproved intoxicants that, in and of themselves, cause no harm beyond that caused by APPROVED intoxicants and, in many cases, far less harm.
It also leads people to believe that movies, books, and video games CAUSE certain behaviors when it is apparent to anyone with even a child's view of history that these behaviors have ALWAYS existed. We allow the corporate media, in its quest for sensationalism, to blow things way out of proportion and engender a knee-jerk response that ignores the realities of human history. Sociopathic monsters have always existed. In the past, it was simply that they had more convenient outlets and far less public scrutiny.
We've allowed ourselves to be exploited into fearful reaction toward entirely too many things, and have therefore enabled would-be authoritarians to wrest our lives and choices from us in entirely too many areas.
This is not rocket science.
I loathe authoritarianism, no matter the ideology it claims to embrace. I don't want the "conservatives" telling me what to do with my body, mind, and spirit, and I don't want the "liberals" doing the same.
Every so often a flame war breaks out about this very subject..."how far is TOO far?"
All I have to say to those who want to enact laws to accomplish liberal or progressive goals aimed at individuals...try to convince me all you want. You try to force me, and you become my enemy just as surely as those hypocrites on the right with lies, double-dealing, and serial monogamy with their endless parade of "trophy wives" in the guise of "morality."
That applies to flag burning and Grand Theft Auto alike. I have never done (played) either, but I don't need anyone sticking their nose into the mix. Don't tell me what I should watch on TV, or read in books, or WRITE, for that matter.
Understand that, and we'll get along just fine.
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