Values and Identities

Decide to dress up in blackface or in a Klan costume at 17? You’re “just a kid.” Apparently, kids shouldn’t have their decisions haunt them for their entire lives. I mean, a dude can apparently even attempt to rape another teenager, and well, he was 17, we all make mistakes... right? It’s just some else’s entire life you’ve effected, right?

Now, when a 17 year old takes on a few hundred thousand dollars in debt, that decision needs to effect their lives as long as it effects their lives.

And toddlers, infants, minors of all kinds deserve the kind of lifelong trauma they’re being dealt at the border, because they broke the law, right?

I am saying that you need to really think hard about what you believe a “good faith” argument is, because the people making these same arguments do not value human life or human dignity. They’re telling the rest of us they are willing to sacrifice the dignity and well being of other human beings for wealth or property.

There’s been a confusion between politeness and civility. These people may be polite, but there is nothing civil about this. It’s not just “politicians profiting off of dividing us” either, as wonderfully simple as that sounds. I don’t disagree that plays a part, but we’re far beyond that now.

These are people who are telling you there is no value for human dignity and well being. They’re telling you identity and it’s proximity to power is the real and only value, right before they tell you that describing the reality their values create is you engaging in “identity politics.”