Respect the unrespectable?
Yesterday my Facebook feed was full of reshared banalities presented in the form of great wisdom. One of them was the thought: “If we cannot agree with each other, can’t we at least respect each other’s views?” I thought about it long and hard and came to the conclusion that no, no we can’t. Obviously, this was not an answer to a certain issue, but rather weighing whether it was possible to genuinely respect everyone’s opinions and views or even their right to them, and I came to the answer, no it isn’t and no we shouldn’t. Why? I hear you scream. I’ll tell you why.
Let’s imagine a person loves fucking sheep. (New Zealander of course.) In his view, this does no harm to the animal and it is perfectly acceptable part of agriculture, just one of the perks. How much respect do you have for this person, his views? If you choose to respect his views, the sheep will get fucked until this ahole drops dead on one. Then he insists that men should be allowed to marry their sheep. The sheep can’t say yes, no matter how much the farmer loves one. How much respect do you have for this person and his opinions? Not much I’d hope.
There are some opinions and views that cannot be respected. If I hold an idea close to my heart – such as you cannot demand other people follow the rules of your religion (as in anti – gay marriage, anti-abortion, anti-premarital sex people think), I cannot respect their views, no matter how much I try. To me they are oppressive to other people’s views, and therefore impossible to respect. How can you possibly respect such a view that inherently disrespects somebody else’s view so much they want to override it with a law? With all these, gay marriage, abortion and premarital sex, they all have something in common: If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it, and nobody is forcing you to even contemplate such thing. But the anti-group are saying that since we don’t want to do that, you can’t either. That is unrespectable. Utterly impossible for any fair minded person to respect, support or allow.
That is very true. Same goes for prostitution and medicinal drugs, in my opinion. How is it logical that the government tries to control things that don’t affect them,or anyone else for that matter. Law should be to focus on the safety of people and protecting rights, not infringing upon them. In America, they say we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But you are only allowed to pursue happiness if your idea of happiness is in line with the governments.
Completely agree, as for prostitution, Finland, where I am from, has a perfect prostitution law in my opinion. Prostitution is legal but pimping is illegal. This way, nobody cannot be used in business purposes, but both men and women are free to buy and sell these services. The only restriction they have is to not do it in the streets, which I do find a bit prudish, but the net makes it possible to advertise without having to be too in your face about it so I guess it’s OK.
Medicinal drugs are iffy though. Restricting them has a clear link to protecting the citizen from substances they are not equipped to judge the safety of. Even doctors make mistakes with drugs. However… Maybe recreational drugs should be legal. Who am I, or a government, to say that someone cannot OD? As long as the use of them would be regulated similarly to alcohol so that minors would be protected from them. Seems to work fine in the Netherlands.
The reason governments outlaw recreational drugs is because if someone gets high and then decides to drive a car or piece of machinery, they can hurt someone. And this is just one example. The law isn’t put into place to prevent someone from overdosing; it’s to protect people who would otherwise be victims of drunk drivers, etc. However, we know that won’t stop people from using recreational drugs, but the law should be there nonetheless.
Then why alcohol isn’t illegal in most countries?
Excellent point. (As is that about alcohol in the above comment. Outlaw being under the influence of ANYTHING IN PUBLIC, but whatever one does in private, alone or only with others who agree to it, should be their own damn business.)