When I say conservatism, I am referring to politics. I am sure that conservatism as a more general term is not for stupid people either. I’m trying to make a point, though: that everyone deserves to be listened to, and in this extremely polarized society no one should be judged by mere beliefs. Hey, you might be surprised at how often that happens.
My father. (You knew I was going there.) My father is not Conservative because he thinks that gays/abortion/etceteraetcetera is evil. He favours that party because he believes that all governments are somewhat corrupt, and the smaller the government the more personal freedom. If this is truly attainable through voting a certain way, I could be a conservative too, as that seems to me to be as good a reason as can be expected.
Now, my dad is a scientist. He has a degree in biology (and an MD, of course) and is without doubt the most intelligent man I have met. He is also a religious man, which brings me to one of my favourite rants: religion and science do not by definition contradict one another. Yet I digress. Back to my point.
One can arrive at the same conclusion by coming from totally different angles, and there are stupid people on both sides of the spectrum. To fall into the trap of labelling an entire group of people as stupid is clearly the stupidest thing there is, because regardless of how highly they value the principle of equality, these people are effectively saying that only people who share their beliefs are equal to them.
Sometimes I wish it wasn’t so much easier to have No Opinion.
Set me free.
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