Lately I've been getting a lot of that ol' "If you don't think like me and agree with all of my opinions about _____ then you must be a bad/ignorant person and a Fascist" from a few friends and acquaintances.
Which is a little unsettling, but then again, not.
It's unsettling because it reinforces the polarization trend that the major political parties in the United States have been promulgating and appear to be supported by all the major mass media businesses in this endeavour. (if you're not aware of it, all of the news organizations you listen to or watch are indeed businesses, geared to selling ad time to other businesses trying to reach a specific demographic).
It's also unsettling because the same people who are deeming me to be a "bad/ignorant person and a Fascist" do not seem to realise that what they are doing, attempting to force me to believe specifically what they believe, is in fact Fascism itself.
Let me clarify something here, as Fascism has been designated by those who wish to define terms, as being exclusively a descriptive of the far right and labeling a person a Fascist is to imply that the person in question is therefore an adherent of the far right - but that is simply not true, for as history has shown, Fascism in it's purest form can be applied readily as a descriptive of the far left as well.
Fascism has been defined as a sizable political movement that incorporates virulent adherence to certain core beliefs, such as total control of a society's social structure, the suppression of individual rights (specifically the right to disagree with the political party in power), the regulation of the economy via strict government regulation, and contempt for anyone who disagrees with the parties principals.
Yeah, that's just the gist of it, but it's sufficient for my argument.
Quite literally, that definition can be applied to just about any political or religious movement one can think of (perhaps not the Baha'i faith, which is probably why it meets with almost universal opposition from most of the other religions).
Any whatzit, most everyone who knows me also knows that one of my core beliefs is that as long as a person does not harm or take advantage of another human being, that person is okay in my book.
But I'm being told that is simply not enough, because that means I must be in agreement with people who, while not actually harming or taking advantage of people, are espousing beliefs that differ from what the aforementioned few friends and acquaintances believe.
So much for those aforementioned few friends and acquaintances oft stated "live and let live" idiom.
I try to be fairly broad minded and just because someone I know or associate with holds an opinion about something such as music, art, literature, religion, or politics that differs from mine doesn't mean I am going to no longer associate with them, or that I'm going to condemn them.
Again, as long as it does not harm or take advantage of another human being.
So, as I mentioned at the beginning of this rant the part of being labeled a bad/ignorant person and a Fascist is both unsettling and then again, not.
The "then again, not" part is that it challenges me to find a way to explain to those few friends and acquaintances why they are absolutely wrong about that belief without resorting to a good ol' "oh yeah, well f*ck you."
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