Special Interests and the Norm

One thing that our "enlightened" society has harbored in me, is the exact opposite of its goals. Special interest groups raise a heavy amount of ire in me now, in that they are special interest groups.

I can understand people being oppressed for things outside their control, and thankfully most of these historical problems have been more-or-less rectified. But when people go out of their way to stand out from society, and then loudly clamor to be treated like the normal citizen, it irks me greatly. If you want to be treated as everyone else, wouldn't the normal course of action dictate that one ought to act like everyone else getting the treatment that said individual or group so desires?

I am aiming this specifically at the gay and lesbian movements, but there are also several other movements of note, as well. When I see a "pride" parade, I am almost shriveled with disgust, in that they are going out of their way to exaggerate their sexual preference, whereas most respectable members of society keep this discretely where it belongs, in the home. For some reason they think that their sexuality should be everyone's business, while in fact no one cares except them. They are annoying, and dispossessing, the very people from which they seek this notion of equality.

Its like the growingly prevalent war protests, where we have people who make a spectacle of themselves, often in bizarre and utterly unreasonable ways, throw an aura of discredit upon people against the wars who show the ability to take things up rationally. This loud minority actually hurts the cause, while trying to help it by alienating themselves from the rest of humanity, and their ways. The same goes for the likes of Michael Moore, who in his liberal crusade has damaged the reputation of liberals by association.

If one wishes to be treated normally, or even be heard by a respectful audience, one must act within the bounds of the super society in which one wishes to be accepted. Everyone else abides by certain norms and standards, and thus are treated in a fair and equal manner, to think that some vocal groups think that they should be able to act as deviant as possible and be treated like everyone else is silly. Society needs its norms to be cohesive, and to break these norms for vocal minorities would be to break the standards in which society remains whole and functional.

This is not meaning that I am against any group of individuals, being that I think all should be accorded their equal rights, and all are wholly sacred beings. It is just that I am against those who wish to be special, but refuse to pay the costs of deviance, which is to be marginalized, and alienated. Granted, some groups this marginalization was unfair, by any means, but this was not by choice (such as the case for visible minorities, such as blacks, hispanics, and asians, and women) and this it was a grievous mistreatment of them as humans. But the other groups, who could be within cultural norms and mores, but reject them by choice, deserve no respect in their causes, in that most of their problems come from their willful hypervisability.

I'm sure all people of the dominant culture would, at times, like to stand forth and promote themselves as being different, it is a very human state of affairs, but in doing so they know the social stigmas attached to such action.

None of this is to say that people should cease being what they view themselves as what they are. But these defining characteristics do not belong in the open view, they belong firmly in the personal life. Not to say that one should be "in the closet" either, since many normal people express their life-choices openly, but in a way that does not call to attention, and no group should be forced to live in shame, or to hide ones identity. Things become a matter of discreteness.

People must learn that their life choices is not what identifies one as individual. And that by asserting that which makes you different, one does not become better in ones self. A person is who they are, no matter how loud they yell, and in fact the yelling diminishes them as a person within societies eyes, they become more the yell than the respectable individual.

I'm sorry if anyone found this point distasteful. And remember that i actually do view all people, and their rights as sacred, there is no group which should be discriminated against, But when you look at how things are, you can understand some of this discrimination, and even see how it does, in fact, relate to the individual or groups being discriminated against. Not saying that is is their fault, but only that the unreasoning, but loud, factions within these groups are doing no good to the greater cause, or good.

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