Conservatives Demand Respect for Themselves but Refuse to Offer it to Anyone Else

People will walk up to women and children and scream in their faces

The word “respect” gets tossed around a lot in our country, but it doesn’t mean much. Usually the only time I hear it is when somebody thinks it’s appropriate to sit me down and scream it at me for a while.

“You might not respect yourself but you will respect me!”

I remember situations like this from when I was ten. When you’re ten, your inclination is to laugh when you’re verbally attacked. You laugh, not because you think the situation is funny, but because you’re nervous and your only hope is that the visage of the deranged, abusive adult is going to crack and he’ll say, “Just kidding!”

That never happens.

Instead, he goes, “Do you think this is funny?” And, just like that, you’re in for another round of lectures.

All these jerks stomping around screaming about respect need to learn that it’s their job to model respect. Then there’s the massive population of passive people who say, “If it’s so bad there, why don’t you move,” as if conflict avoidance is not a form of enabling.

The United States has no respect for children, it has no respect for women, it has no respect for immigrants, it has no respect for Black people, it has no respect for the poor. It has no respect for the LGBTQ+ community. The list goes on and on. There are massive swaths of the population that are treated like human garbage and it’s unacceptable.

Talking about respect

There’s the shadow of a threat hanging over everything we say and do in the United States. Every citizen knows it’s there, we just pretend it’s not because we’ve all been conditioned to chant how great our country is.

“It’s the land of the free…”

“It’s the home of the brave…”

“It’s the greatest country on the Earth…”

A nation of zombies is closer to the truth.

The only value I see in the word “respect” is that it’s something you can use to initiate a conversation and it puts the oppressors off their guard. When you say the word “respect,” they’re briefly stunned. They expect you to repeat the preinstalled tirade that they mistake for independent thought. When you put a twist on it, they tilt their head, look at you with confusion, and whisper, “No…”

But they can’t formulate a response beyond that because they don’t know how to think for themselves.

Talking to the community

I stood up at a community meeting. Somebody had made the mistake of handing me a microphone. You’ve got to be careful when you speak in public. There’s no opportunity to go back and delete a poorly conceived phrase. So, I started with something I knew they couldn’t refute and worked up to what I really wanted to say.

“I think our school system needs to place a greater emphasis on respect,” I said.

Nods of agreement. I’d used the magic word. Their heads start bobbing so fast that their fillings start to come loose. “Ah… respect, respect, grunt, grunt, Bible, grunt…”

“We’re a community of families, and I believe our community needs to treat our wives and children with respect.”

“Ah… respect, respect, grunt, traditional values, families, Bible, grunt, grunt…”

“Recently I was walking through town with my family when a truck drove by. My family had to see it. This truck had a 4 foot by 6 foot flag with the F-word written in giant block letters. To me, that’s not a sign of respect.”

This is where the crowd starts getting confused. They know they’re supposed to agree because you used the words “family” and “respect” but they also know who is driving around with these kind of signs. They’re reeling, so keep pushing.

“My wife is an immigrant, that means we’re an immigrant household. In our household we speak Spanish. It doesn’t show respect when somebody comes up to my children and says, ‘This is America, we speak English here.’”

Now the crowd responds with muttering. There’s a touch of anger, so you have to reinforce the issue.

“Can we all agree that nobody should be coming up to berate my children in public? For all I know, these people are groomers and traffickers.”

“Ah… groomers and traffickers, bad, bad, grunt, bible, traditional values, respect, family, grunt…”

“When my family speaks Spanish in public, we are breaking no law, so there’s no need for anyone to come up and scream at my wife and kids. They never scream at me mind you. It’s always my wife and children.”

More brain melt from the crowd. Too many concepts they’ve been trained to interpret in only one way: with them and only them on the side of right.

“Can we all agree it doesn’t show respect when a stranger walks up and starts screaming at your wife and kids?”

They’ve been cornered. They have to agree with that. Nothing in their programming allows them to wriggle out of recognizing that it’s disrespectful to go up and start screaming at a woman and a child.

“So, you can’t scream ‘Go back to where you’re from!’ at my kids. That’s disrespectful.”

“Ah… mutter, mutter, grunt, respect, I guess…”

“Since 2016, people have been looking at the color of my wife’s skin. They’ve looked at the color of my children’s skin. They’ve heard them speak Spanish, and they’ve stomped up to scream in their faces. They screamed, ‘Build the wall!’ That’s disrespectful. When screamed at a person of Latinx heritage, it’s also racist.”

“Enraged grunt… don’t get political… grunt… grunt… mumble… grunt…”

“I’ll say it again. It doesn’t show respect to go up and start screaming in the face of women and children who are doing nothing wrong. It doesn’t show respect to drive around in a vehicle with an obnoxious banner emblazoned with the F-word. It doesn’t show respect when a major political party uses a racist phrase as a campaign slogan. We need to teach that in our schools so that our whole society can relearn the importance of respect.”

There will be a roar of outrage at this point. You’ll probably have to say something like, “You can boo me all you want, but it’s a simple fact that it’s disrespectful for anyone to get in the face of my wife or my kids and scream profanities or racist phrases at them. That’s a fact. That’s not respect, and you know who is doing it!”

We don’t have this conversation

The hardest part about this whole dialogue is that there’s such a specter of looming oppression in our country that you’re not even allowed to have it. The second you say, “Build the wall is a racist slogan,” people will snort and reply with, “Let’s not get political.”

As if that’s an answer to anything.

“Who is being political? I’m just trying to protect the wellbeing of my wife and children. I just want to see them treated with respect in our community. I’m kindly asking you to not get in their faces and scream racist slogans at them.”

In the minds of the oppressors, “Respect” is something that they’ve defined and you have to abide by. It’s the same right down the list. They claim they stand for law and order right up to the moment they break the law. They claim they’re the only ones who work therefore they are the only ones who deserve to be compensated. They claim that only their vote counts and if you vote (and your candidate wins) it’s some kind of an affront. They claim they are patriots even as they turn around and try to overthrow the government.

We don’t say anything because we know any comment is just going to provoke them into further rage. There’s also a massive population of cowards that will, when faced with the rage of oppressors, turn and criticize innocent people who stand up for themselves.

“Now see what you’ve done? If you’d just sat there and meekly endured the abuse he wouldn’t have gotten so angry. What’s wrong with you?”

Those are the worst people of all.

There is no respect in the United States of America

The mechanism of silence is why we’ve arrived at this disaster of a community were nobody respects or supports anyone. We have a community where people drive around with obnoxious banners emblazoned with profanities. Men will stomp up to women and children and scream spittle in their faces. They do all this because conservatives have brainwashed themselves into thinking they own the concept of respect.

They don’t own it, they’ve defiled it. You’ve got to speak up and let that truth be known.

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