Handing your eyes back to you

Socrates, the guy behind the Socratic method of learning, was executed by the government at the time because he was pissing people off. He drank hemlock, according to the stories, but it was still a legal execution. Or, as so many people like to call it, murder.

Actual assassination attempt aside, a lot of people take tremendous offense at my questions.

I don't get that.

A lot of people won't answer my questions. Instead, they roll their eyes, engage in evasions and change the subject. My favorite evasion is "You can't understand."

That may be the truth. In some situations, it absolutely is a truth. If you are a parent, can you explain to someone else what being a parent is like? Nope. They must experience it. No one can tell you what being a new mom or dad is like. But once you experience it, no one has to tell you. So yeah, if you're not a parent, you can't understand.

It's still an evasion.

Why? What good does that do?

These people who love to DER (dramatic eye roll) also love to complain about people who don't understand.

Yeah.



Then come the questions which can be answered, but people won't. They roll their eyes. They evade. They dismiss. Persist and they start hurling insults.

EHB says, "That's because an eye roll doesn't require that the recipient take a year of college level political science and philosophy to understand. 'You're interrogating this from the wrong perspective' does."

To which I replied, perhaps I don't know enough to ask the proper questions.

Could be.

GRINDING YOUR GEARS

So let me grind your gears a minnet. Here are some simple (simple to me anyway questions). Yes or no answers is all that's needed.

Can a person change gender?

Can a person be attracted to members of the same gender?

Can a person be attracted to men and women?

Can an adult make decisions for himself? (Use of him is gender neutral herein because I don't feel like typing a long string of pronouns each time.)

Does a person have the right to try to be happy, as long as he doesn't harm anyone?

Does an adult have the right to change himself?

My friends on the <- and the -> will probably answer some of these questions differently. However, they should all say the answer to the last two questions is yes.

NOT SO SIMPLE QUESTIONS

These are still yes & no anwer questions. However, few people will be satisfied with a yes or no.

If you agree to the try to be happy premise and change premise then –

Can a person change the gender he is attracted to?

There's one that'll spark argument.

If a person has the right to change himself (you all said yes), then does a person have the right to try to change which gender he is attracted to? (and dangling prepositions is something up with which I shall not put!)

The answer has to be yes. Otherwise you are not being honest in your earlier answers. (For the record, I don't care who you are attracted to. If you're happy, nuf said. If you are not happy, try to change things without harming someone.)

And this is why I don't understand the furor surrounding programs that try to change who a person is sexually attracted to. Make straight people gay. May gay people straight. Whatever. If the program is voluntary and the person is an adult and signs up to try to change, then why do you care? If the person does not want to change, why do you care?

If the person wants to be happy, then do they have the right to try to change?

How can you tell someone they can't change, if they are not harming anyone?