Closed-Mindedness

For those of you who know me on a personal level, you would know that I don't follow politics all too much, and I probably should look into it at least a little bit more now that the 2020 Presidential elections are coming up and I'm finally old enough to vote in them (last election happened when I was 17, just a year short of being able to vote). And for the politics that I do get involved with, I typically am right-leaning, a.k.a. Republican.

While I'm not really one to be talking much about politics since as I mentioned I don't have any knowledge on anything current, my views do fall under the conservative side of things. For example:

• I am pro-life because killing babies in the womb is just the same as if anyone were to kill anyone else outside of the womb. Just because they are called a "fetus" doesn't discount their human status, nor does calling them a "clump of cells" work because technically we are all just larger clumps of cells.
• I am pro-gun/anti-gun-control. I am a strong believer in the 2nd Amendment in the American right to bear arms. No way will I let nor enable a government take away the people's choice and ability to arm themselves. I intend to own guns some day.
• I strongly disagree with the LGBT community. I don't like their lifestyles, but I also won't hate them as a person.

There might be some other views of mine that are considered to be "conservative" but I can't really think of anything, and given my lack of knowledge, I don't want to say something out of this world and be wrong about it.

So given that last point, this is where the post stems from. At dinner, somehow we were talking about drag queens. No big deal, right? So apparently years ago, my dad had considered taking my siblings and I to a place that was a restaurant with supposedly good food and the live entertainment was something to do with drag queens. My response to it nowadays was "yeah, I think I'm going to have to pass on that". I had also said, "I think I would lose my appetite if I saw a drag queen".

My sister chimed in saying I'm "close-minded". That I'm being unfair and unjust to the typically gay men who are dressing in drag, or at the least effeminate men who partake in drag. My sister's friends are mostly left-leaning, more liberal people, many of which being a part of the LGBT community. I don't hate her friends, I just disagree with their choices.

I have a feeling it's because of these friendships that she has that leads to the more liberal views she has. She claims to be a republican, but at the same time defends a lot of liberal views when I express my disagreement of them. I'd be open to try to learn more about their views, but the moment I start disagreeing with something a more left-leaning person would hold, my sister goes on to say I'm being stupid and I'm close-minded.

I find that ironic. A strong point in liberal claims is that they say conservatives are not tolerant. But the funny part to it all is that tolerance actually allows for disagreement of views. That just because we don't like something, doesn't mean we have to hate one another. That we can disagree on something and call it a day. But to say things like calling out intolerance or calling someone close-minded seems like the opposite of what they preach. Very hypocritical of them.

And sure maybe this post makes me sound intolerant, but the point I'm trying to make is that my sister acts as if she knows everything when she doesn't. I don't know everything myself, but I don't call her close-minded when I talk about more right-leaning, conservative views.

Politics get messy very quickly, and it's something I typically like to stay out of because of how easily it applies stresses and tensions on relationships, apparently even on familial ties as well. I suppose this is the world we live in, and I guess at the end of the day, we just have to do our parts and do whatever we can to go day by day.