Please pardon me a post that’s a little more political than I usually make on this blog. As with my Christian posts, I don’t proselytize, I try to see things as objectively as I can, but sometimes things just have to be said, and at least for right now, this is as good a place as I can think to say what I want. If you’re not interested in US politics, or more specifically a center-right dissertation on US politics, please feel free to skip this post with my blessing. In fact, I insist. I don’t want to offend any more than I want to stay silent. I have pert-near three hundred posts on this blog now, and most of them are not on this topic, please feel free to find one more to your liking. Might I suggest this one?

I didn’t give this warning with my posts about Afghanistan because, with this post, I want to hit a bit of a third rail. Or maybe two, depending on my mood. Please note that I am extremely depressed at this moment, so it might show. Bear with me. Or not.

As I have mentioned, I live in Texas. Texas just passed a bill, which survived initial Supreme Court scrutiny (but is not guaranteed to survive full scrutiny) that bans abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. This was done in a novel way that completely takes the state out of enforcement and makes it a civil infraction, so the state can’t be enjoined from enforcing it, because they can’t enforce it in the first place. This is a novel way of creating a bill, fraught with peril, but it’s the path Texas has chosen and it is paying short term dividends for those who are anti-abortion.

I am not going to discuss my personal opinions on abortion in this post. I will simply say I find it personally abhorrent, but that I am much less certain on what weight my personal opinions should hold, and I will leave that there. That is not what I wish to talk about. Okay. Third rail somewhat avoided, I guess.

The thing I want to discuss is the reactions to this Supreme Court ruling.

One side is jubilant, saying how the court has pretty much struck a huge blow for pro-life views, blah blah blah. The other side is whining, saying that those evil Republicans have killed abortion and hate women, blah blah blah. It’s all predictable. One side thinks they’ve won, one side thinks they’ve lost, and there’s all sorts of cheering and whining.

Replace this with the SCOTUS (Supreme Court) ruling on gay marriage years ago. I personally think that was a terrible ruling, not because of the outcome, but because it was terribly constructed, and obviously written backwards from an outcome. But at that time, it was the other side that was cheering and jeering, and the right who were bemoaning the death of the country, etc. Same shit, different day. I can’t say I cared too much about the ruling itself – my personal opinion on marriage is, get rid of it, it’s none of the state’s business. But I really, absolutely hated how people were comporting themselves. The gloating, as well as the moaning, was shameful.

So next will come the riposte, where the pro-abortion folks (I did not say pro-choice intentionally) will pursue trying to nullify this (rather insignificant, all told) ruling by other means, they might win, then it’ll be the same cycle of cheering, whining, and then another riposte, ad nauseum.

This is not how civilized people behave.

We have, intentionally or unintentionally, fostered a situation where half the country believes the other half are evil. It doesn’t even matter which half, frankly. The pro-life people see the pro-abortion folks as baby-killers. And maybe they’re right. The pro-abortion people see the the pro-life people as anti-woman. Maybe they’re right too. But maybe the truth is more nuanced than that, and people are simply incapable of seeing nuance.

But this problem exists because people won’t talk.

I felt a certain way about the ruling today. I am not articulating it. I am neither cheering nor whining, because I don’t see that kind of behavior as appropriate. I am not saying “in your face, liberals”, nor am I saying, “you evil conservatives”. I’m simply noting that it happened, considering what the future impacts of that ruling will be, and moving on with my life. It really is not a useful thing to gloat, nor is it a useful thing to feel defeated. It just… is.

And the same applies with most other things as well. I like it when things go in a direction I think they should. In my opinion, the court has made some bad, and some good, rulings lately. But I don’t get too bent out of shape about it. It’s not really healthy, and I don’t want to start thinking about half the country as evil – at least, any more than I already do.

I’m, after all, not immune.

I don’t want to discuss this topic, and I won’t. I don’t want to discuss it because I don’t debate emotion, and this is a discussion that is not at all based on fact. But I do want to say that I don’t think either side is evil. Everyone’s just trying to make their own way in the world, and for the most part, are the blind leading the blind. It’s not worth being a jerk over. And that’s the point, ultimately, that I wanted to make.

Stop being a dick and start thinking of your political opponents as human, and the world will become a better place.

Semi-political third-rail rant touching over.

And please, if you feel like ranting in the comments about how evil I or anyone else is, just please don’t. No one wants to hear it.