I Don’t Mind Using Preferred Pronouns. I Mind Being Forced Into It

[Old Warrior in Exile]

I Don’t Mind Using Preferred Pronouns. I Mind Being Forced Into It

There is no place for commanding specific language—thoughts, even—in a free and open society.

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By Alex Grass
JUNE 19, 2017

My father-in-law is a smart and accomplished lady. Grandma M is a transgender woman who majored in physics at Columbia University and earned a black belt in karate. I choose to refer to Grandma M as a woman because, in my mind, she is a woman. Nobody forced me to think that. It’s a choice rooted in visual perception, familial respect, and love. But it seems that a certain political faction disagrees with this voluntary approach.

A few months ago, at Grandma M’s traditionalist dojo, a karate classmate—let’s call her “Xir-Says”—threw a tantrum over the politics of language. Xir-Says demanded to be referred to as “Xir-Says-San.”

Her sensei tried to explain that San is an honorific reserved for students who’d proved themselves worthy by demonstrating certain skills, that it was presumptuous for Xir-Says to make such a demand since she hadn’t earned it by demonstrating high-level expertise, and that students who hadn’t passed the San benchmark, like her, could be called either “Miss” or “Mister.” She didn’t care. Xir-Says insisted that being called “Miss,” or anybody being called “Miss” or “Mister,” was discriminatory and insulting to “intersex” and “gender non-binary people.”

This was absurd, political posturing. Xir-Says’s sex is female, and she doesn’t say otherwise. But the sensei relented, fearful of the potential backlash that might ensue—Facebook and Twitter shame-bombs, rebuke from a rash of Brooklynite neo-Marxian muckrakers—should he not obey Xir-Says’ demands. She is now called Xir-Says-San. Low-skill students needn’t any longer be referred to as “Miss” or “Mister.” A longstanding tradition was eroded by the gender identity demands of an impertinent brat.

Are We Fully Human If We’re Slaves?

There is no place for commanding specific language—thoughts, even—in a free and open society. As more people surrender to the illogical demands of a totalitarian minority, our world becomes less free and more closed. Fear reigns, cowardice replaces courage. We are now confronted with the same question Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked when facing down the Soviet police state decades ago: “If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?”

If you’ve never censored yourself from fear of offending the ultra-righteous and politically correct language monitors, you’ve likely been out of the country for a while. This is all a logical extension of the New Left’s obsession with power, a power they believe must be wielded against the counter-revolutionary dogmas of liberty and faith. Their power madness allows them to define others’ beliefs, since those pesky beliefs, hidden within the primitive mind, are also counter-revolutionary. This is the demon lurking in democracy.

In 2016, the Little Sisters of the Poor—a group of Catholic nuns who provide low-income housing to the elderly—pleaded to the Supreme Court that they could not provide birth control to employees as a matter of religious conscience. When President Obama’s Solicitor General Don Verrilli was asked during oral argument whether forcing the Little Sisters to provide birth control meant they would be, in their own understanding, complicit in a moral wrong, Verrilli said it was up to the court to define the Little Sisters’ beliefs: “We’re saying that the judgment about complicity is up to you.”

http://thefederalist.com/2017/06/19/dont-mind-using-preferred-pronouns-mind-forced/

[Silver Pines]

Well, I do mind using preferred pronouns, and I refuse to humor such absurd bullcrap.

I have news for the author---his father-in-law, the "lady", is a hairy-legged man in a dress, just as Bruce Jenner isn't a she or an it, but a self-mutilated male.  I don't care what's "in his mind"...in my mind, I won the lottery last week and I'm driving a new Jaguar.  It hasn't affected reality, though.

Steve Deace got it right in response to this article.  He said when the right humors this kind of thing and goes along with it, the right always loses ground to the left.

@Old Warrior in Exile

[goatprairie]

Well, I do mind using preferred pronouns, and I refuse to humor such absurd bullcrap.

I have news for the author---his father-in-law, the "lady", is a hairy-legged man in a dress, just as Bruce Jenner isn't a she or an it, but a self-mutilated male.  I don't care what's "in his mind"...in my mind, I won the lottery last week and I'm driving a new Jaguar.  It hasn't affected reality, though.

Steve Deace got it right in response to this article.  He said when the right humors this kind of thing and goes along with it, the right always loses ground to the left.

@Old Warrior in Exile

People who go along with the nutters, enablers, are just as much destroyers of civilization and sanity as the nutters. Without the enablers the lunatics couldn't get away with their lunacy.

[Old Warrior in Exile]

Well, I do mind using preferred pronouns, and I refuse to humor such absurd bullcrap.

I have news for the author---his father-in-law, the "lady", is a hairy-legged man in a dress, just as Bruce Jenner isn't a she or an it, but a self-mutilated male.  I don't care what's "in his mind"...in my mind, I won the lottery last week and I'm driving a new Jaguar.  It hasn't affected reality, though.

Steve Deace got it right in response to this article.  He said when the right humors this kind of thing and goes along with it, the right always loses ground to the left.

@Old Warrior in Exile

I can offer no better response than this one from the article:

The era of live and let live is behind us. Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychology professor who brought the Bill C-16 controversy to light after publicly denouncing it, recognized this to be true: “If they fine me I won’t pay it. If they put me in jail I’ll go on a hunger strike.”

Today, one must choose between compliance and civil disobedience. I say my mind is my own.

 

[endicom]

Well, I do mind using preferred pronouns, and I refuse to humor such absurd bullcrap.

What if your job has you representing your employer? I've been there and I had to know when to be me and when to be representative to my customers.

[Silver Pines]

What if your job has you representing your employer? I've been there and I had to know when to be me and when to be representative to my customers.

@endicom

It's against my religion.

[Taxcontrol]

I use three pronouns, he - she - it
Which one do you choose?