Tolerance. Equality. Individual freedom. The right to self-expression. These are the things that make democracy great. These are the things that make life worth living.
And yet many people who claim to support these ideals, really do not. While they claim to, they see equality as something they are deserving of, while simultaneously they view anyone they do not personally approve of trying to gain equality with them as an attack on their own superior and privileged social positions.
They distort facts and ideologies to serve their elitist and supremacist ideals, and hijack democracy in order to preserve a social order where words like "love" and concepts like "good" and "evil", and even terms like "family" and "marriage" become tools to exclude fellow human beings from equal, decent and humane treatment - and as weapons to destroy them.
The true ideals of democracy is not simply "mob rule" as some allege today. The underlying cause of the establishment of democracy as a system of government that led to the golden age of ancient Greece, was inequality.
The same can be said of the ancient Roman republic - the Etruscan kings were deposed and replaced by a senate (which lasted until the time of the emperors). Through the centuries, people have always sought for some form of equal opportunity society, where all are equal before the law, where one class of people do not have autonomy to do what they will with the rights of the masses. Through the centuries, there have been a variety of experiments with different forms of government, and quite honestly, most of them are drenched in blood, and written in the ink of the hard lessons failure has to offer to the unwise, the impatient and the foolish.
To me it is equally abhorrent when people who participate in democratic government and who claim to have the best interests of "all" people at heart while they work tirelessly and without conscience to deprive a significant portion of any population of equality, dignity and right to exist in peace unmolested in the name of democracy - and employing the democratic system in achieving the goal of perpetually preserving specific groups of people with an "other" to hate, abuse and persecute in the interests of selfishness, unity and a hunger for power.
We need to ask ourselves why some people don't agree with equality for all people, and why anyone would oppose such lofty ideals? Why do they condemn the struggle for recognition by certain groups of people, while simultaneously claiming the same rights for themselves?
It seems reasonable to believe that someone who does not have full rights under law will not work to undermine their own rights - and so therefore those working to undermine the civil rights of the oppressed certainly consider themselves above other people and are working to prevent equality at all costs.
Why do they feel the need to paint those seeking equal rights under the law with the brush of "radical liberal", "unpatriotic anti-social", "anti-family", with the tar of "homo-fascist" or "homosexual terrorist"? When has a gay man walked into a homophobic church and blown it up? When has a gang of transsexual women straight-bashed a bigot for complaining about them using the restroom? Why do they choose to equate our need to be equal to them under law as "hijacking" legal process, or democratic values? Why do they seek to cheapen not only our ideals, but to devalue our lives as well, and to work to deride and continually undermine our right to exist alongside them?
How, when religion is separated from the mechanics of state, can some try to justify withholding the legal use of a word common to language and not unique to their religion - coupled with the legal union it describes?
Why, when science and medicine prove our worth, do they employ lies and propaganda to try and bluff people into hating? Why, when religions are built on foundations of tolerance, love and peace, do they twist the structure of the message into a liturgy of hatred, persecution and war?
Is it vanity? Pride? Arrogance? - Jealousy? Fear?
How can there be equality when the law favors one above the other, and the law suits one group people, while disadvantaging another, and is intended to keep it perpetually so? How can it be called "fair" when a person's worthiness to be treated with compassion and justice is dictated by who he loves, by what is between her legs, or by what pronoun they choose to be called by? How can it be considered "right" and "good" when people who claim those words as part of their set of values employ those values in campaigns of hatred, oppression and violence against others?
How, when logic and reason show there is no harm or threat inherent in treating others with respect and dignity as themselves, do people still partake in breaking down everything for which the principles of a free, equal-opportunity democratic society stands?
Why, when people who mis-lead such groups against equality for others, and vent so much bile, hate and ignorance in public forums, do they impart only the message that they are filled with hate, bile and ignorance - and that they have completely missed the point of their religious studies? Why, I ask, do people continue to hear them? Why do they continue to listen, and to partake, and to support them?
Can they not see how they are being used as pawns in applying inaccurate stereotypes, junk-science and prejudice for the purposes of creating inequality, blaming scapegoats, and perpetuating injustice?
Is it because they don't know any better, or because they aren't interested in knowing any better? Is it because they either can't or won't think for themselves? Or is it because they agree with these messages of exclusion, support the ideology of separation, and cherish the philosophy that they are somehow "better" than anyone else - and somehow deserve to be more equal than them?
And yet, all they do is to empower hate, uplift elitist values and enshrine oppression in the name of democracy, justice and love. Isn't it sickening?
You have to admire the kind of mind that can pull that off. You have to pity the kind of people who don't see it. You have to worry for those of us who do.
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If you would like to know more about Christina Engela and her writing, please feel free to browse her website.
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2019.
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