Individuality = Communism? (The Matrix, Two.)

Nordom: Attention, Fall-From-Grace. I wish to address your body.

Fall-From-Grace: I beg your pardon? 

Nordom: Your body. Your form. Your reason for selecting it. Why?

Fall-From-Grace: Why..? I suppose I find it comforting. Besides, I rather like the wings.

Nordom: It would be more practical for you to assume the form of a modron. It is 13.27% more efficient; give or take +5.2%.

Fall-From-Grace: (gently flirting) Why, Nordom... are you trying to court me?Nordom: It was not my intention to initiate legal action against you.

~Exchange between Fall-From-Grace (A Succubus) and Nordom (A Modron) from the video game Planescape: Torment.

I have a confession to make.

I don't understand the Right's obsessive hatred of people's different pronouns these days. I just don't. 

And note, I say this as somebody who used to be a conservative whose beliefs were informed by the libertarian ethos of the Reagan era. I don't give a fuck what somebody's "Pronouns" or sexual orientation, etc. are. It's not my business. That's what I was taught. Also, I took a human sexuality class in college and learned that both gender and orientation are properly considered a spectrum in 2002 when I was still a moderately conservative Republican...if one well on my way out of Christianity.

Hell, if it was me, I'd appreciate that stuff being on somebody's nametag. Why? I'll admit to finding some of this gender-and-orientation stuff these days a little confusing...and a handy guide on your nametag makes that shit easier for me. I'll note that I saw my first actual they/them "in the wild" like eight years ago. Where the fuck has Erick been? 

It's a funny story, actually.

My (lesbian) roommate-at-the-time had this friend (biologically a girl) who was *Cough, let me see if I can get all this right in one go* Asexual, Gender-queer, Pan-Romantic, Pronouns They/Them. My first thought (and what I said in response to this being explained to me) was "Damn, that's a lot of thought to put into it, not to get no Booty." 

Even at the time, I saw this stuff as complicated, but fundamentally harmless to me or anyone else as a person. It's none of my business how somebody else defines themselves. That is a god-given human right. If how you feel inside or how you define yourself doesn't match the biological wrapping your soul is currently in...well, we have the capability now to do something about it, don't we?

And why shouldn't we, if it helps make life bearable for people?

 And I find it a little telling that Erick, Son of Erick, equates both different pronouns and individuality (in gender/sexuality terms at least) with...wait for it...Communism! Seriously, who took a wrong turn in the Matrix to come up with that one?

Granted, everything Republicans don't like is basically Communism these days.

Modern "Conservatism" is confusion.

There's a hell of a lot of people in this world right now, I think, who'd give an awful lot to have their only problem of record be "Being offended by social change."

Like, you know, the entire population of Ukraine, probably.

There's a war on, fundamentally because the KGB agent that rules Russia doesn't like Ukrainian people and thinks they should not exist. 

But of course people like Erick Erickson like Vladimir Putin, and genocide, and homophobia and transphobia and hate and petty resentment. So the guy that had to be a paragon of Communism to get to where he is, is of course Not Communist. Despite the fact that he's literally running every aspect of the Communist playbook right now in attempting to conquer Ukraine and subdue domestic opposition to the war. Russia is descending back into Soviet-era repression...if not Stalinist terror...because of one man and his supporters.

But the last thing we can expect from conservatives, as ever, is moral or even political consistency.

I predict that within days, if not hours, the Russian "Z" will replace "MAGA" as these people's favorite ideological symbol.

And that's assuming it hasn't already.

Because none of this bullshit was ever about any of the stuff these people say it's about. Modern "Conservatism" is solely about the ability of the powerful to do whatever they want to the less-powerful and whether that's people of different ethnic groups, races, or religions or sexuality doesn't really matter very much. Difference is only an excuse. Desire for self-determination appears to be a cause for war these days, unless of course you belong to exactly the right small group.

And It's all bullshit. This too, will change with time. That's exactly what these dishonest fucking people are afraid of. 

Consider that there was a time, actually an entire historically-significant era (The Classical era) and an entire hegemonic culture (Greco-Roman culture) that shaped...wait for it...Western Civilization, where Men above a certain social rank were more or less expected to be bisexual. It was that way until Christianity achieved dominant power in Roman/Byzantine society and it stayed that way low-key well into the 4th Century.

I think, if somebody had brought up the issue of "Pronouns" to the Romans at the height of the Empire in all its murderous glory (You know, what these fascists-and the Russians-say they want to emulate) the average Roman wouldn't have given a shit, so long as you make your offerings to the Emperor and the Gods. Rome was a pluralistic society.

But it's funny how nobody wants to talk about any of that.

I'm just tired as hell of these ridiculous people.

And I'm even more tired of the fact that they get to start wars over this bullshit.

Part One

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

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