How Binary Are We Really?

How many different kinds of Americans are there? Just two? Don't be ridiculous.

art be Pixabay

Binary Opinions

OK, I’m confused.  Again.

I grew up with the absurd notion that there are only two genders, although some number of people didn't fit neatly into either/or.  All these years later, that still seems to hold up.  There are definitely only two sexes. With VERY rare exceptions, one must be male to produce sperm, and one must be female to produce an egg and bear offspring. The egg must be fertilized by the sperm, and then the egg can grow into another human being, either male or female, with VERY few exceptions.

It seems strange to have to review high school biology at this point, but there seems to be a need.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am the Radical Individualist.  I respect anyone wanting to identify however they care to.  So, a person can come up with fifty, eighty, a hundred genders, and call themselves ‘they’, if ‘they’ want to. (I’m still waiting for our useless Congress to come up with a singular, genderless pronoun.  Perhaps for as little as ten or twenty billion dollars, they might be able to fund a study that would determine a singular, genderless pronoun.)

Anyway, here’s my real conundrum.  Why do the same people who adamantly insist that there are an infinite number of genders then assume that opinions are binary?  For any issue, they think there are just two opinions.  For progressives, that breaks down into ‘Their’ opinion, and the ‘wrong’ opinion.  Two.  Just two. You are either for abortion (the correct opinion), or opposed to abortion (the wrong, misogynist opinion). There are just two ways to view climate change, the progressive (right) way, and the ignorant (denier) way.  The science is settled; you are either right (progressive) or wrong (everyone else).

There’s one right way to teach, the progressive way.  If you bring up any other possibility, then you are wrong. All elections are squeaky clean, unless a progressive loses, and then it’s rigged.  Just ask Hilary Clinton and Stacy Abrams.  They both insist that Trump stole their elections from them, and then insist that Trump should be prosecuted for claiming his election was stolen. The way to preserve democracy is to persecute your opponent.

Either/or, on all matters except gender.  On gender, the one thing that is as either/or as it gets, progressives insist that there are limitless possibilities. For everything else, there is only the progressive ’truth’ and everybody else’s ‘lies’.

There are over 330 million Americans. How stupid does a person have to be, to think there’s only two opinions? I don’t want to repeat myself, but I will again mention sports. There’re two teams on the field.  Not three, not ten. Two.  You need to support one or the other, or there’s no point in watching the game. There are two political parties.  Apparently, you have to support one or the other, or there is no point in participating in government. I don't’ own a football team, but I am an owner of government.  They are OUR governments, remember?  They aren’t the democrat and republican governments; they are OUR governments. I don’t accept either/or. I accept 330 million people hashing things out.  How efficient is that?  Not very, I hope.  With 330 million people trying to agree on anything, very little is likely to be agreed on.  And that would mean very little government.  Anybody got a problem with that?

What is YOUR opinion on abortion?  On marriage? On responsibilities and rights? What are your greatest ethical concerns?  No, not which side did you pick, YOUR opinion.  YOUR values. I challenge you to turn off the TV, your computer, close the newspaper, walk out of college class, and THINK! I may be wrong, but I think if everyone looked within themselves, rationally, spiritually, whatever ways work for you, and sought your own answers, we could fairly well work things out. But if we keep letting two parties tell us what our issues are and lure us into taking sides, this mess will only keep getting worse.

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