little boxes
I found a lovely bit of wisdom on the TV a while back. It was the show House, M.D., and one character said to another, “the people who hate boxes are generally the ones who can’t fit in one.” Or something like that. I smirked when I first heard it because I thought it was painfully simplistic. And it was (painfully simplistic, that is) but also true.
I hate boxes. I also find that I have a hard time fitting into them. I was born and raised in a fairly conservative tradition. I’ve got extended family that’s Amish. That also didn’t stop me from getting a huge tattoo across my back and dying my hair pink on my eighteenth birthday. (The tattoo reads “misericordia”, which is the Latin word for mercy, and should make perfect sense to anyone who reads this blog regularly.) I’ve left some of my conservative roots but certainly not all of them. I’ve kissed less people out of passion than I could count on four fifths of my right hand. My husband is the only man with whom I’ve ever been intimate. I’m twenty-five, a stay-at-home-mom, I breastfed both kids and started them out in cloth diapers.
Yet… I’m a raging feminist, and would never expect or even ask another woman to make the same choices as me.
I personally believe that all life is sacred, and I would rather be beaten than get an abortion- if my government required one after two pregnancies I’d become an expatriate. Yet, I believe that freedom of choice is God given, and I would rather conservative politicians do what they can to make abortion legal, safe, rare, and a last instead of first option for the impoverished, than that it be made illegal. So what am I, conservative or liberal?
I believe that the point of government is to protect and sustain above all else. I don’t believe it’s the government’s job to force people to live holy lives or to protect people from themselves- only to protect them from undue interference from others.
I believe that we should treat others the way we want to be treated, and when I hear about things like the abuse of prisoners I think of the Americans who are oversees, and how horrid it would be if the same thing happened to them.
While my personal heritage condemns homosexuality, I believe that any two people who choose to combine lives and possessions should be afforded the legal protections that make such a commitment feasible. Life is hard enough, we should all be afforded comforts where possible. True, holy, marriage isn’t guaranteed by a certificate, but that certificate is important because of what it represents- security.
All citizens should have equal rights to be secure.
So what am I? Conservative, liberal, confused? There are times that I myself don’t know. Socially I’m not necessarily conservative, fiscally I’m more conservative than either party seems to be and I believe I favor a conservative foreign policy, although some liberals would tell me that by the dictionary definition of “conservative” a “liberal” foreign policy is more conservative than the “conservative” one.
God help me, it all starts to give me a headache after a while.
When looking towards the election, I actually take the time to read all of the candidate’s policy points and check them against their voting records. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seem like they are both fairly good matches, and John McCain might be as well if he hadn’t become such a war hawk in his old age. This leaves me triply befuddled, because when you listen to them speak, they don’t sound equally matched, and they all proscribe to different agendas.
Life would be easier if we all really did fit into carefully labeled boxes.
Tony replied:
You know what a Libertarian is. I know you do.
My friend told me once that I think outside the box - all the time - and it’s my undoing. So I know what it feels like.
March 13, 2008 at 7:10 pm. Permalink.
Caroline replied:
! You’re 25? Really?
I’d assumed you were older, at least mid-30’s. You come across as being very mature (and I say this as a relatively mature 25-year-old, too!)
Just goes to show you can’t label people so easily, eh?
I think I just proved your point…
March 13, 2008 at 8:22 pm. Permalink.
amberfireinus replied:
I read your blog post and gave it quite a bit of thought before responding to it.
First of all I would like to take the two words in question here… conservative and liberal. When did either of those words become either positive or negative in the english language? Americans speak of liberals as if it were a dirty word or something. Weird.
The fact of the matter is that no one is emphatically black or white on any issue or of any political party. If you question anyone on the street, you will find that actually they are more shades of grey than actually black or white.
I also would like to point out to you that Jesus did not fit in a box. He was the ultimate in liberal and the ultimate outsider of the social norm. He was a Jew who questioned and rejected all of the Jewish teachings, virtually wiping them out with his own. Many of our great teachers, philosophers and thinkers were the same. They too have been accused of many things, being heritics for one comes to mind.
Abe Lincoln loved dirty jokes. Does that take away from all of the amazing things he did for our country? Does that take away from his deep thoughts which has shaped our world today?
We are all shades of many colors. Thats what makes us who we are as individuals. Like snowflakes on the wind, each completely unique and original. Personally, I wouldnt have it any other way.
March 13, 2008 at 9:45 pm. Permalink.
e2c replied:
From one “doesn’t fit in the box” person to another - *great* post!!
March 13, 2008 at 11:30 pm. Permalink.
jaklumen replied:
@amberfireinus: Americans speak of liberals as if it were a dirty word or something.
Touché. Those that are liberal speak of conservatives most evilly.
I do not really claim to be either.
March 14, 2008 at 3:27 am. Permalink.
shush replied:
Tony: I took one of those “political map” tests that shows where you fall on the “conservative” to “liberal” scale and something-or-another to libertarian, and apparently I’m a conservative libertarian just like the Dahli Lama and Ghandi! w00t!
Caroline: People tell me that they think I’m in my thirties all the time, but I look like I’m barely twenty and I have two kids, which makes people I meet on the street think I’m a drop-out loser. I HATE ASSUMPTIONS. (Not yelling at you, because yours was on the nicer side of things, just in general…
Amber: I do wonder why those words have to be divisive, because in and of themselves they don’t mean anything bad. Our political system NEEDS both, because it NEEDS debate and it NEEDS checks and balances, and if everyone lay conveniently to one side we’d all just agree and things would become a huge mess. Thanks so much for your comment!
Jaklumen: thanks for dropping by!
March 14, 2008 at 12:02 pm. Permalink.
Vanessa replied:
Great post - very thoughtful. I think part of the divisiveness in our politics is that we try to put people into boxes (liberal, conservative), and rather than debating the real issues, we replay the party line, complete with pat responses to the other side’s comeback.
We either think liberals are dirty socialists, or that conservatives are right wing Christian moralists who are out to get the little guy. The truth is, that neither is true.
We need debate, but we need debate about the issues, not whether being liberal or conservative is correct.
March 15, 2008 at 1:43 am. Permalink.