Why Do People Care About How Another Identifies

I’m going to take a slight detour from my usual topics because it’s my blog and I get to do whatever I want. Let me first start off by stating that the longer I identify as a libertarian the more of a mistake I believe it has been for libertarianism to align itself with neoconservatism. It probably made sense at first because neoconservative talking points often revolve around small government, individual liberty, and free markets. Obviously their actions don’t agree with their propaganda but in the political realm it probably made sense for libertarians to align themselves with the politically influential group that at least pays lip service to libertarian beliefs.

Here’s the problem, many neoconservatives now call themselves libertarians. Many gun rights advocates have been discussing how they don’t want Open Carry Texas on their side. For many of the same reasons I don’t want neoconservatives on my side. They make libertarianism look dreadful. Whenever a discussion involving social issues comes up there are numerous neoconservatives claiming to be libertarians spewing shit that isn’t libertarian.

While there are many camps of libertarianism most of them are built on the foundation of non-aggression. In other words libertarianism can generally be summed up by a quote from Will Smith’s character in Men in Black, “My attitude is: don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing!” Neoconservatives like to start things and that makes being a libertarian, which is tacitly associated with neoconservatism, really fucking annoying.

I feel as though points are best demonstrated with examples. In an online “libertarian” group I came across this story about a 16 year-old who ran into a snag attempting to get a drivers license:

Chase Culpepper — a 16-year-old who wears makeup and androgynous or girls’ clothing on a daily basis — went to the DMV in Anderson on March 3 with his mother to get his driver’s license after passing his driver’s test, according to a press release obtained by The Huffington Post. However, he was told he couldn’t be photographed while wearing makeup.

DMV employees said he did not look the way they thought a boy should, and one individual called his makeup a “disguise,” the release notes. Culpepper ultimately removed his makeup and got his photo taken, but the experience left a mark.

The first thing that came to mind when I read this story is why did the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) employee gave any fucks about Chase wearing makeup. It’s not like Chase is going to buy smokes or booze with a drivers license that states an age of 16 years-old. But the DMV employee wasn’t the only person who cared. No, quite a few neoconservatives who moonlight as libertarians cared a great deal.

The common thread running through the neoconservatives was basically that Chase should act like a man because he is a man (the thread was usually worded in a more derogatory way) and that the DMV employee made the correct call. OK, that’s their opinion, whatever. What really began to irritate me was the thread that began to spin off from the original article, which was whether or not the state should enforce gender identities (because “small government” to a neoconservative means a government big enough to enforce all of his or her beliefs).

Who in the hell thinks it’s appropriate to send costume-clad men with guns to kidnap anybody who fails to properly (whatever the fuck that means) abide by their gender? Neoconservatives, that’s who. And this is why they piss me off. Even if you believe there should be a government why would you want it to enforce how you personally identify, act, and dress? Are you really so offended by people not fitting your idea of what a man or woman should be that you want violence wielded against them?

To my dismay people have begun associating this stupidity with libertarianism and that too pisses me off. Often enough people assume that as a libertarian I hate gay and transgender people. I don’t. Quite the opposite actually. I want people to live their lives in the way that makes them happy. What I don’t want is people feeling as though they have to hide who they are or otherwise live a miserable existence.