Six years ago, authors Erick Erickson and Bill Blankschaen wrote what turns out to have been a very prescient book about the culture wars. You Will Be Made to Care: The War on Faith, Family, and Your Freedom to Believe predicted the situation we have in America today.
“The Left will not let you stay on the sidelines. You will be made to care,” wrote Erickson. Conversely, whatever you care about will be ridiculed, or worse, identified as “hate speech” and subsequently suppressed.
Kansas state Rep. Cheryl Helmer responded to an email from a transgender activist asking about the banning of biological males from female sports. The legislature had passed the ban but the governor, Democrat Laura Kelly, vetoed it. Eventually, the legislature overrode the veto by an overwhelming margin.
“Now, personally I do not appreciate the huge transgender female who is now in our restrooms in the Capitol,” Helmer wrote in an email which was published by the Topeka-Capital Journal. “It is quite uncomforting. I have asked the men if they would like a woman in their restroom and they freaked out.”
The transgender lawmaker in question, Rep. Stephanie Byers, was offended that Helmer was uncomfortable sharing a bathroom with a biological male. Why? Is it absolutely necessary to be totally comfortable in a situation that most of us have spent our lives believing was by definition uncomfortable?
Is Helmer supposed to pretend that having a biological male in the bathroom is perfectly natural to her even though it isn’t? And is she just supposed to keep her mouth shut if she’s uncomfortable?
If transgenders and their activists truly desire to change the culture, I’ll be glad to give them a little hint: This is decidedly not the way to do it.
Byers has highlighted online threats she has received on social media and said in a floor speech that she has received looks and subtle derision from colleagues.
But she said this was clearly the most derogatory remark directed at her by a fellow member of the Legislature.
“From someone that I work with, someone that I speak to, as we get out of our cars and take the elevator, no,” Byers said. “And I mean, I’m not shocked by it. I know who I am. And I know what the ideology is, as opposed to people like me, and I’m sure these discussions have been going on behind closed doors for the two years that I’ve been here.”
It’s not a question of “ideology,” though Byers would love to politicize the discomfort Rep. Helmer feels from having a biological male in the women’s bathroom. This is a matter of privacy. It’s a question of culture.
The freedom to feel uncomfortable should not be a political question. But Byers and other transgenders are making it so.
In a near-future America, you will be forced to care. Helmer’s “feelings” are not as important as Byers’s “feelings” because of the transgender’s privileged position in the victimhood hierarchy. Only some people’s feelings can be acknowledged as being hurt. Others are hurt because they’re insufficiently woke or they’re just plain transphobic. Their feelings are not legitimate and can not only be dismissed but made into “hate speech” when objections are made.
This is worse than 1984. The dystopian society we’re turning into will police thoughts and feelings as much as words and actions.
Tolerance my a**.
Source: PJ Media
