Club Dues

 I think that the unraveling or our collective conscience can be found most readily in the argument between "pro-life" and "pro-choice." One side is pro-abortion. The other is anti-abortion. I'll give you a moment to unscramble this word jumble. 

If you decided that both of these labels are somewhat ineffectual because they have been sanded smooth of their actual meaning, then I will award you a special gold star for rhetoric. Somehow, being backed into a corner that suggests that anyone would be "pro-abortion" is a trap that far too many caring individuals have been forced. 

Now go ahead and expand this view into the realm of "conservative" and "liberal." Pity the poor Democrat who winces under the yoke of all the baggage that comes with that label: Liberal. Suddenly you are burdened with an entire ideology and the messiest parts of its legacy. Likewise there are plenty of Republicans who have taken to the revisionist view that it was their party who brought forth on this continent a new President, conceived as Lincoln and committed to the idea of abolishing slavery. It's a convenient eddy in the stream of time where things were different. One of our country's most unrepentant racists, George Wallace, ran under the Democratic banner.  

Of course, there is safety in numbers, and aligning oneself with a crowd allows one the opportunity to duck behind the label without ever having to explain or rationalize one's own beliefs. Suddenly, it's no longer a personal belief, it's part of a codified system that may or may not reflect all the tricky ins and outs of modern life. This may be the only way to imagine how a herd of mostly men could grip tighter to their podiums and declare that abortion should be illegal even in the case of rape, incest or the life of the mother. As if the light creeping through any crack in their group's views might signal weakness. 

The same can be said of the Second Amendment club that seems to grow evermore insistent that every man woman and child has not just the right but the duty to bear arms, as if somehow the body count might reach a point where it turns back on itself and suddenly guns are no longer killing people, they are actually resurrecting them. Cataclysmic weather events across the globe continue to be ignored by those who have committed themselves to the idea that climate change is a hoax. 

If the club you find yourself attached to ignores things like math and science, you might think twice before renewing your membership.