Forum Post: To those who appreciate lack of conformity in a nation but not in a movement.

"We conform to no one" can have two very different meanings depending on the context of the statement. You're trying to bring out the first meaning; America has the final right of self-determination and anything or anyone that attempts to bully us into changing who we are is going to find out exactly why we have the Second Amendment. I have no problem with that; I don't believe that anybody has a right to tell us how we run our country.

The problem is that this is not the meaning I hear when I hear the phrase from people like you. What I hear from people like you is "There is no God but the Patriotic Everyman and I am his prophet" and that scares the shit out of me. Everyone and everything in this universe is subject to basic laws of logic and basic physical laws. I don't care who you are or how righteous you are: gravity still applies to you. Maxwell's equations still describe the behavior of your lightbulb. Your body is built of proteins no different than the rest of us.

While all of this may sound simple and elementary now, this also goes for things like evolution; your genome was derived from the same common ancestor as mine, and that ancestor was most likely a primitive primate. This also goes for logic. For a postulate to be valid it must be rooted in actual facts and reasonable deductions based on those facts. When applied in that context "We conform to no one" is not about protecting or defending our homeland or our rights; it's about deliberately attempting to short-circuit reason through an appeal to a mythical authority figure whom you have imbued with all attributes of virtue and wisdom. Newsflash: if the Patriotic Everyman believes that 2+2=5, then he is wrong. Belief does not and cannot replace reason in a functioning world.

Furthermore, the appeal to such a figure is also used as a rallying cry to lead people into things that they would never ordinarily involve themselves in. Executing a man for a crime we know he did not commit is wrong, but pressure to stop it must be rejected because America conforms to no one. Going to war in Iraq under totally false pretenses is wrong, but attempts to remind us of this must be brushed aside because America conforms to no one. Picking up a US citizen off the street, disappearing him for four full years, and probably torturing him is wrong, but attempts to tell us so are treason and sedition because America conforms to no one. Rugged individuals like the Patriotic Everyman conform to no one; so do bullies, criminals, and sociopaths. Which do we want America to be?