Conservatives are all about hierarchies and that explains a LOT
NOTE: this text was not written by me and is from user u/CampTrampStamp. The only changes were minor formatting for readability. I would merely link to reddit if they had a way to highlight comments, but they do not.
The original post.
It’s actually super important for people like Pence and it tells us everything we need to know about why they are dangerous.
Their ethics, call them Christian Nationalist/American Conservative/Fascist, are about hierarchies. All conservative schools of thought believe hierarchy is a natural part of order. For the Christian Nationalist straight and male is at the top, female and queer is lower. Pay inequality? It’s because men are better. Teen suicide rate? It’s ‘cause we tolerate homosexuals. Child poverty is because the “traditional family” has evaporated.
If somebody is trans it blurs the line of gender and sexuality which makes hierarchies difficult to implement and even harder to justify. Every conservative movement pushes strict social orders based on race, gender, caste, religion, language or whatever else is available.
Liberals don’t see a trans person as less than (or more than) because our ethical and political system doesn’t need to. We’ll judge that person on things like kindness or wisdom.
For Pence and the millions like him it doesn’t matter who they are, but where they fit in the hierarchy.
Edit: There are a few people saying this is nonsense, but offering no counter argument or evidence to the contrary. Still, I think they deserve some elaboration and clarification.
Go read up on Thomas Hobbes—he’s the OG conservative in the Weatern Hemisphere.
Conservatives aren’t inherently bad and liberal ideologies can be dangerous too. Communism is an attempt to radically dismantle hierarchies, in particular economic ones. Communism is the exact opposite of Christian Nationalism. It’s an extreme approach to equality and dangerous because it targets anybody who makes more or speaks louder than the baseline. For example, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (Communists) murdered millions of Cambodians, including people who wore glasses because they looked smarter. They were obsessed with equality to the point of uniformity through violence.
Conservative parties and philosophies are based on the idea that hierarchies are natural and beneficial in society. They would argue trying to dismantle a hierarchy is equivalent to some kind of Looney Tune scene where they’re cutting a hole in the floor and it goes all the way around themselves. Chaos will ensue and people will get hurt.
What’s personally concerning about Christian Nationalism is the similarity it bears to Southern Democrats, Know Nothings and fascists of the past: a desire to codify the hierarchies. Think about Jim Crow laws or Nuremberg laws. These weren’t just laws that reduced equality or gave a little advantage to some group. These laws straight up said this group is better than this group and everybody should act accordingly. Pence and others like him are saying, “We’re going to make laws so that women and people who are trans are treated differently by doctors, coaches, bakers, and police officers and if you want to treat them badly you know this administration will have your back.”
So if my comments about conservatives upset you, it might be that you’re the dangerous kind of conservative I’m talking about.