You want to be a decent human? You want to celebrate human rights and independence?
Then, so long as others are not causing harm to anyone...
1. Live and let live
1a. Don't tell others how to live
1b. Don't tell others what choices to make
1c. Don't tell others how they must act or be
Simple.
And, if you want to go above and beyond...
2. Live, and celebrate one another for our own delicious quirky selves.
Also, Frederick Douglass:
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim.
To him, your celebration is a sham;
your boasted liberty, an unholy license;
your national greatness, swelling vanity;
your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless;
your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence;
your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery;
your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings,
with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him,
mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—
a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices,
more shocking and bloody,
than are the people of these United States, at this very hour...
Words to remember for all the historically oppressed.
6 comments:
Jefferson quote on the Southeast Portico of the Jefferson Memorial:
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
"1. Live and let live"
Not everyone lives moral lives. Some live lives which are harmful to others as well as themselves. Some live lives which burden their community. Here's one woman's view of the term, which to some extent mirrors my opinion about the expression:
https://www.lingq.com/en/learn-english-online/courses/375394/why-live-and-let-live-doesnt-work-may-1567756/
While quite the liberal Democrat/feminist, Bialik is not totally stupid and on this issue notes the expression for what it is...inane. For my part, it seems very much a way to carve out liberty to do what is clearly bad form in that the person who expresses such a slogan seeks to promote the notion "my" way of living is no better or worse than "your" way of living. This is only true in specific comparisons if true at all. But those who profess this nonsense is typically looking to continue doing that which the person knows is wrong. It is another form of the corrupted "judge not, lest ye be judged" mantra from those who also wish to continue doing wrong.
If you attempt to demand I need to be providing "evidence" to support this honest and objective response to the expression, don't waste your virtual breath.
"1a. Don't tell others how to live"
Aren't you doing just that in demanding one doesn't tell other how to live? Setting that ironic self-contradiction aside, most of this comes from those of your ilk. Those like me encourage. Those like me look at one's condition, gather info on one's behavior and then make the obvious connection between the latter leading to the former, and recommending a better path to follow...with the option up to the person who's found themselves in the unfortunate condition to carry on as before.
"1b. Don't tell others what choices to make"
Same as 1a.
"1c. Don't tell others how they must act or be"
Same as 1a. You could have stopped at 1a but chose to be redundant.
"2. Live, and celebrate one another for our own delicious quirky selves."
You don't live this in the least. You only celebrate certain "quirky"...aka, immoral...behaviors while condescending to better people with far better character than those "quirky" people you defend.
Douglass was writing to a particular people of a particular time who are YOUR people, not mine. You're perverting his words so as to include those who are not what he had in mind at all.
Marshal...
"Not everyone lives moral lives."
I will once again point you to what I actually said:
so long as others are not causing harm to anyone...
1. Live and let live
1a. Don't tell others how to live
1b. Don't tell others what choices to make
1c. Don't tell others how they must act or be
SO LONG AS someone is not hurting someone, then don't presume to step in and criminalize who they are or the choices they're making. In other words, don't be a fascist ass.
It is, of course, quite vital to not say, "Ah, he's a Nazi! Well, live and let live!" or, "Well look at that: He's a white supremacist gathering weapons and spreading 'the election was stolen' lies. Well, live and let live!"
Of course, we need to intervene to prevent harm.
Marshal...
"Aren't you doing just that in demanding one doesn't tell other how to live? "
No. Literally not. If YOU don't want to gay marry, don't marry a guy. I'm not telling you how to live. If YOU and YOUR immediate family don't want to have an abortion, don't have one. NO ONE is forcing an abortion on you.
Understand the difference?
BUT, if you want to try to tell OTHER people how they live with the force of law and tell them how THEY must identify or what medical decisions THEY need to make, then you've crossed over to the "causing harm" category.
You don't get to take away people's rights. That's harm.
Understand the difference?
Your right to swing your fist always ends well before hitting someone else's nose.
No, Dan, he doesn't get it. He may acknowlege the fact of what you've noted. But to keep his identity as a white man he needs myths.
He needs the myth that 12.4% of Americans - black folks - represent a threat. He needs the myth that 6% of Americans - LGBTQ+ folks - represent a grave threat to his identity as a white man.
He needs these myths becasue the threat of the Other answers a psychological needs he has:
- Confirms his sense of guilt
- Provides an irrational but powerful counter-argument to his guilt that "these people" are out to get me and all Christians.
- Focuses his attention on bogus scape goats instead of the march of time and human rights that really assualt his regressive brandin of faith
- Diverts from the failure of his chosen political leaders to deliver convincing victories over the changing nature of time and the progess of morality AND! the collapse of the American Dream for the economic success of white people: that our white children wil be better off than us, that's the whole purpose of the US.
- He can fanatsize that he - and not young black men and gay men and trans people - is the one under real threat. Despite the whimsical slaughter of black peopel and gay men and trans women, Marshal believes he is related to those Christians in the Roman Empire who were under real mortal threat, despite the unmerited privilege we all ive with to never be under suspicion by anyone of anything... because of our pale skin.
Marshal made unsupported and dubious false claims, attacking women and LGBTQ people with his false charges. They were deleted.
Just a reminder: Unsupported and clearly false charges will be deleted. You won't pass on deadly propaganda here, attacking historically oppressed people. This is a safe place from assaults and propaganda.
Fundamentalist extremist white Christians like Marshal, Craig, et al, don't care about mothers beyond their reproducing. And most white people altogether don't care about black mothers.
"The epidemic of Black maternal mortality: the United States is the most dangerous industrialized country to give birth, with Black women dying at three times the rate of white women."
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