Fighting for Equality is Now Weakness?
A few weeks ago, I had some time to kill, so I was surfing the web and I came across a video clip that had the term “SJW snowflake” in the video title. I’ll be honest, until that moment I had never read, heard or seen the phrase and wanted to find out what it meant. The first part of the phrase was easy to decipher; it’s an acronym for “Social Justice Warrior” and the second part had some different ideas on the term depending on the context. In this case “snowflake” meant fragile and easily offended (essentially the opposite of tough skinned). I was blown away by this and really wanted to understand why someone wanting equality is viewed as weak. The more I looked into the term the more I found that it tends to be used on the right to describe the left. I’m refraining from using the terms conservative and liberal because even though in our current culture conservative means “right winged republican” and liberal means “left winged democrats”, if you really look at the definition of the words one will find that it is possible to be a left winged conservative or a right winged liberal. For example the definition of liberal is “open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.” So whatever side of the isle you may be on if you are open to listening and if you find an argument to be valid or make sense to you to re-understand or change what you believe, congratulations by definition that makes you a liberal, but I digress and will get to re-defining.
In the video Ben Shapiro (If you don’t know him a simple google search will fill you in) was giving a lecture and as he was taking questions a woman came up and asked about the Transgender movement and the video caption was saying that Ben Shapiro shut this SJW snowflake down by basically saying that biologically speaking you are either born male or female and that isn’t up for debate because it’s science. As the women tried to restructure her argument he then stated that it works similar to age. As in one can’t define themselves as a sixty year old because they aren’t sixty and that is just how it is wither you like it or not. Now, I don’t mean to continently virtue signal, but I feel it’s important to state it doesn’t matter what belief I hold, what matters is asking questions and trying to better understand, so here is where my brain started to notice things and ask questions. Why is it a problem to re-define terms? I understand in the context of biological reproduction having the anatomy that provides the sperm is different than the anatomy that provides the egg. They are different and one can’t be the other, but no one was arguing to re-define science. They want to re-define from a personal and social point of view. Everything that we know and understand has been done because we created language to make that possible. Whomever was creating the English language could have easily decided that if you had a penis you were called a woman and if you had a vagina you are called a man. Although science can help us find facts that can’t be disputed; language was invented by humans, so everything that is named theoretically could have easily been called something else and that would have been that. My friend Gregg makes a funny joke saying he was upset the term “selfie” was used for taking a photo of yourself because he thought it would have been a much better term for masturbation.
I’ll note that I understand that we shouldn’t be re-defining things willy nilly as that would muddy the waters, but in specific contexts it’s done all the time in language and we know it as slang. We already as people create slang by re-defining words. Take the word faggot for example. The definition of faggot before it was re-defined as a hateful word towards homosexuals was “a bundle of sticks or twigs bound together as fuel” or the work sick means “affected by a physically or mental illness”, but has been re-defined in a specific context to mean awesome and or cool. To my knowledge no one attacks using slang terms. I’m not lost on the irony of even having the word snowflake in the video title because it itself is a word we have now re-defined to a specific context. The more I went down the rabbit hole of how the term snowflake was being thrown around the more I found it was a common argument with many different aspects of equality. Why is was the case? Would the world end if we decided to use the terms male and female in a biologically context and use the term man and woman in a personal identity context? Why is it a huge issue if someone wants to identify as the opposite sex if it makes them happy or using terms like they and them instead of he and she if they choose to be gender neutral? These people want their happiness as we all do and I believe the pursuit of happiness is in our Declaration of Independence. Would it be fair to call anyone burning their Nike gear right now a snowflake? If your own personal pursuit of happiness was shut down in such a way that was disrespectful especially on something as important as equality wouldn’t that also anger you?
Which leads me to why it’s a problem on whatever side of any argument you are on in regards to a person’s happiness when anger gets involved. Anger like alcohol can easily affect judgment and reasoning. Anger causes a lot of people to do things they shouldn’t and that is true no matter what you believe, but America has always been the land of the free and home of the brave, so how hypocritical is it to attack, denounce and label someone as weak because they believe their happiness can be achieved differently than what you believe? They’re using their freedom to be able to share what they believe and want, they are showing extreme bravery to stand up for it especially if it’s an idea that causes a lot of controversy. Wouldn’t that make those people the most American to do so? We here in America have the freedom to believe and stand for whatever we want to, now of course there are factors that come into play to regulate in an ethical, moral and hateful sense, but I’m not seeing what is ethically, morally or hatefully wrong for wanting equal rights, or wanting to identify as a different sex. I can understand how every person will have their own individual definitions for what is moral, ethical or hateful, but it will take a lot to try and convince me that equality and wanting everyone to achieve happiness in their own lives is wrong in any way, especially if that wouldn’t affect your situation in the slightest. But, we all don’t think the same and I find that to be one of the biggest challenges to governing on a massive scale. Each person’s definitions, experiences and situations are different and I’m not sure how that can be looked at or solved, because no matter what we just can’t please everyone.
If the history of the human race has taught me anything is that we tend to fear what we don’t know and understand. Fear is then often translated into anger and in this day in age having social media has created clear divides and extreme tribalism, so we naturally team up with groups that share and support our fears and hatreds which makes us even more comfortable with attacking instead of understanding on both sides. For example, even though I don’t agree with a lot of what Ben Shapiro has to say, I did see another video of him on a debate panel and a trans-woman just attacked him right out the gate before any debating had started, so it’s clear this is an overall problem. But, that validated anger is why believing in ideas such as wealth equality is viewed by the other side as being lazy and not wanting to work to earn said wealth or wanting equal rights gets you labeled as weak, entitled and too sensitive. Call me crazy, because having equal rights is exactly the thing people should be entitled to. The Declaration of Independence also says that all men are created equal. I’ll say that again ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. Fighting for equality should be the most American thing to do, it holds straight with what we declared our independence as a nation to be.
The sad truth is many believe we all have equal opportunities, but I think equal isn’t the right term even though that is what they feel. In this day and age everyone has the same opportunities, but they are by no means equal. A metaphor I like to use is that the American dream is at the top of a long spiral staircase and even though we all can walk to the top, some of us will have to start at the very bottom, while others start already almost to the top and anywhere in between. People that are fighting for equality just want to get ride of the staircase all together and simply put in an elevator to make it easy for everyone to get to the top and I ask what is wrong with that? If you can’t see a problem with our current system, you are living in ignorance.
We are dominated by greed. Call me basis because I’ve found a way to live a pretty happy life on 38,000 a year and I couldn’t even fathom what I would do making 100,000 a year, so myself never having extreme wealth I’ll admit I look at the world differently. I see people getting millions of dollars in sports contracts while people are starving and having to bust their asses off to just make sure they have basic needs. We are told to work hard and better ourselves, but the average wage hasn’t changed since the 60’s but getting a higher education to better ourselves is more expensive than ever and people will have to go into thousands of dollars into debt to achieve it. Rent is continually rising to we’re a 425 square foot apartment is over 1,000 a month, but we are still expected to make three times the rent. If I go back to my staircase metaphor people are tired and its not because we are lazy or entitled, but because as we keep trying to climb the steps more floors are constantly being added and the stairs are getting steeper and steeper and it doesn’t have to be that way. We need to start thinking with our hearts and not our heads. Saying someone is a snowflake because they want equality is simply hatred. There is nothing fundamental wrong with idea of equality, so instead of attacking with anger try to listen and understand, because all people want is to be happy in their lives or am I the only one?
In the video Ben Shapiro (If you don’t know him a simple google search will fill you in) was giving a lecture and as he was taking questions a woman came up and asked about the Transgender movement and the video caption was saying that Ben Shapiro shut this SJW snowflake down by basically saying that biologically speaking you are either born male or female and that isn’t up for debate because it’s science. As the women tried to restructure her argument he then stated that it works similar to age. As in one can’t define themselves as a sixty year old because they aren’t sixty and that is just how it is wither you like it or not. Now, I don’t mean to continently virtue signal, but I feel it’s important to state it doesn’t matter what belief I hold, what matters is asking questions and trying to better understand, so here is where my brain started to notice things and ask questions. Why is it a problem to re-define terms? I understand in the context of biological reproduction having the anatomy that provides the sperm is different than the anatomy that provides the egg. They are different and one can’t be the other, but no one was arguing to re-define science. They want to re-define from a personal and social point of view. Everything that we know and understand has been done because we created language to make that possible. Whomever was creating the English language could have easily decided that if you had a penis you were called a woman and if you had a vagina you are called a man. Although science can help us find facts that can’t be disputed; language was invented by humans, so everything that is named theoretically could have easily been called something else and that would have been that. My friend Gregg makes a funny joke saying he was upset the term “selfie” was used for taking a photo of yourself because he thought it would have been a much better term for masturbation.
I’ll note that I understand that we shouldn’t be re-defining things willy nilly as that would muddy the waters, but in specific contexts it’s done all the time in language and we know it as slang. We already as people create slang by re-defining words. Take the word faggot for example. The definition of faggot before it was re-defined as a hateful word towards homosexuals was “a bundle of sticks or twigs bound together as fuel” or the work sick means “affected by a physically or mental illness”, but has been re-defined in a specific context to mean awesome and or cool. To my knowledge no one attacks using slang terms. I’m not lost on the irony of even having the word snowflake in the video title because it itself is a word we have now re-defined to a specific context. The more I went down the rabbit hole of how the term snowflake was being thrown around the more I found it was a common argument with many different aspects of equality. Why is was the case? Would the world end if we decided to use the terms male and female in a biologically context and use the term man and woman in a personal identity context? Why is it a huge issue if someone wants to identify as the opposite sex if it makes them happy or using terms like they and them instead of he and she if they choose to be gender neutral? These people want their happiness as we all do and I believe the pursuit of happiness is in our Declaration of Independence. Would it be fair to call anyone burning their Nike gear right now a snowflake? If your own personal pursuit of happiness was shut down in such a way that was disrespectful especially on something as important as equality wouldn’t that also anger you?
Which leads me to why it’s a problem on whatever side of any argument you are on in regards to a person’s happiness when anger gets involved. Anger like alcohol can easily affect judgment and reasoning. Anger causes a lot of people to do things they shouldn’t and that is true no matter what you believe, but America has always been the land of the free and home of the brave, so how hypocritical is it to attack, denounce and label someone as weak because they believe their happiness can be achieved differently than what you believe? They’re using their freedom to be able to share what they believe and want, they are showing extreme bravery to stand up for it especially if it’s an idea that causes a lot of controversy. Wouldn’t that make those people the most American to do so? We here in America have the freedom to believe and stand for whatever we want to, now of course there are factors that come into play to regulate in an ethical, moral and hateful sense, but I’m not seeing what is ethically, morally or hatefully wrong for wanting equal rights, or wanting to identify as a different sex. I can understand how every person will have their own individual definitions for what is moral, ethical or hateful, but it will take a lot to try and convince me that equality and wanting everyone to achieve happiness in their own lives is wrong in any way, especially if that wouldn’t affect your situation in the slightest. But, we all don’t think the same and I find that to be one of the biggest challenges to governing on a massive scale. Each person’s definitions, experiences and situations are different and I’m not sure how that can be looked at or solved, because no matter what we just can’t please everyone.
If the history of the human race has taught me anything is that we tend to fear what we don’t know and understand. Fear is then often translated into anger and in this day in age having social media has created clear divides and extreme tribalism, so we naturally team up with groups that share and support our fears and hatreds which makes us even more comfortable with attacking instead of understanding on both sides. For example, even though I don’t agree with a lot of what Ben Shapiro has to say, I did see another video of him on a debate panel and a trans-woman just attacked him right out the gate before any debating had started, so it’s clear this is an overall problem. But, that validated anger is why believing in ideas such as wealth equality is viewed by the other side as being lazy and not wanting to work to earn said wealth or wanting equal rights gets you labeled as weak, entitled and too sensitive. Call me crazy, because having equal rights is exactly the thing people should be entitled to. The Declaration of Independence also says that all men are created equal. I’ll say that again ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. Fighting for equality should be the most American thing to do, it holds straight with what we declared our independence as a nation to be.
The sad truth is many believe we all have equal opportunities, but I think equal isn’t the right term even though that is what they feel. In this day and age everyone has the same opportunities, but they are by no means equal. A metaphor I like to use is that the American dream is at the top of a long spiral staircase and even though we all can walk to the top, some of us will have to start at the very bottom, while others start already almost to the top and anywhere in between. People that are fighting for equality just want to get ride of the staircase all together and simply put in an elevator to make it easy for everyone to get to the top and I ask what is wrong with that? If you can’t see a problem with our current system, you are living in ignorance.
We are dominated by greed. Call me basis because I’ve found a way to live a pretty happy life on 38,000 a year and I couldn’t even fathom what I would do making 100,000 a year, so myself never having extreme wealth I’ll admit I look at the world differently. I see people getting millions of dollars in sports contracts while people are starving and having to bust their asses off to just make sure they have basic needs. We are told to work hard and better ourselves, but the average wage hasn’t changed since the 60’s but getting a higher education to better ourselves is more expensive than ever and people will have to go into thousands of dollars into debt to achieve it. Rent is continually rising to we’re a 425 square foot apartment is over 1,000 a month, but we are still expected to make three times the rent. If I go back to my staircase metaphor people are tired and its not because we are lazy or entitled, but because as we keep trying to climb the steps more floors are constantly being added and the stairs are getting steeper and steeper and it doesn’t have to be that way. We need to start thinking with our hearts and not our heads. Saying someone is a snowflake because they want equality is simply hatred. There is nothing fundamental wrong with idea of equality, so instead of attacking with anger try to listen and understand, because all people want is to be happy in their lives or am I the only one?
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