I’ve written over 616 posts on this blog. On previous blogs I’ve probably written another hundred or so. I’ve lost count of how many comments I’ve made that honestly would be worthy of being called posts themselves. All told, I’ve probably written over a thousand posts worth of material alone. I’ve been blogging for nearly six years now, maybe even closer to eight. So what I say today is probably going to get lost in that giant pile of written works that I’ve done. But I want to say it anyways.

A large part of Heathenism is about respect. Your supposed to respect people, and you’re suppose to have honor. The more honor you have, the more people respect you. One of the major problems in Heathenism is that often enough no one treats anyone else with respect. That’s one of the major reasons that, while I still am part of the Norse Pantheon, I am looking and learning about the Religio Romana. I’m tired of the disrespect.

But I can’t even say that my exhaustion with the disrespect even really comes from dealing with my fellow heathens. War is a big part of heathenism, and frankly the constant fighting between Heathens is a reflection of that. We have no common enemies, so we fight each other. It’s destructive, annoying, and completely natural. No, my exhaustion with the lack of respect comes from other people, and other places.

I go on the news and web and I hear about ISIL a lot. A few years ago I got interested in studying Islam because I believe knowledge is power, and the power I gained showed me that Islam is a pretty terrible religion in practice. ISIL is the worst parts on steroids, but more on that later. Frankly, I think ISIL needs to be wiped off the face of the earth.

But I have more respect for ISIL than I do a lot of Social Justice people, or even my fellow Pagans who often jump on that bandwagon, who form their religion around SJ principles. And its for a very simple reason.

There’s been a couple posts in some of the Heathen Facebook pages that illustrate why.

The first one was a lady posted about a petition to make a new anchor apologize for a joke he made, because it was about some sort of seizure and this woman’s child suffered from those things, and she failed find it funny. When called out on trying to censor this man, she claimed it wasn’t “censorship” but “educating him as to how his behavior was offensive”…presumably so he would never do it again. Thus, his speech would be censored, but it was okay because it would be self-censorship. Thankfully, those that commented on the thread joined me in roundly denouncing her cowardice.

The second one was even worse, if you will. Someone posted about a man who had apparently killed several dogs. There was some confusion as to if the man had been punished (the OP claimed he had not been charged/convicted, repeatedly screaming at their detractors for having “failed to read” their post). From talking to this person, it sounded like they wanted to the take vigilante justice (even though the Law had found no crime, apparently) which we roundly called foul on. But then it turned out that the OP only wanted to send a bunch of angry emails to various people in power over the killing.

Can you spot where I might have my respect lie and why?

ISIL is a horrible, horrible government bound to a foul, cruel, supremacist ideology. It butchers people in the street for being different, for believing different, for any number of things. But they are willing to stand up and kill for what they believe.

The two above examples are perfect illustrations of how most SJ people work. They get angry, they expect people to follow their lead, be offended by what offends them, and to make the behavior stop…for the SJ person. Angry emails, twitter campaigns, verbal harassment until Actress and Scientist alike apologize for daring to offend SJ sensibilities…but there is no physical violence, no real effort done by them. They “raise awareness” of a problem, but when push comes to shove they expect someone else to shove for them. I actually had more respect for the Dog Poster when it sounded like they were going to go kill the person they were protesting. At least then they seemed willing to actually do something more than sit on their ass.

That’s really the reason I don’t go out and do a lot of activism, or even really protest a lot of stuff. Because that’s my threshold. If the problem isn’t worth killing and dying for, then it isn’t really that big a problem. It can be solved with either rational discussion, or it doesn’t need to be solved. The fact is that most SJ people will not do a rational discussion, and instead form a lynch mob howling for blood and to silence those things they do not agree with (even if they’re too cowardly to actually take it).

Using violence to enforce your beliefs is, to me, wrong. Certainly, you can use violence to defend your beliefs is someone comes after you, but to make people believe as you do is wrong. But I can better respect a person willing to use violence to make someone believe as they do…than someone who screams until a different person comes along to enforce the former person’s belief against a third.