My liberal friends accuse me of being a conservative.
My conservative friends accuse me of being a liberal.

I accuse those friends of being cult members and assert that they should return to founding principles. Devotion to nuanced, vigorous, and well-thought-out debate on issues, not party fidelity. Then go share a meal together filled with mirth.

I value all my friends.

My political beliefs are simply stated: At every level of society, let me and everyone else live our lives without interference, according to our own judgment. Which is only possible with the recognition, and enforcement, that our rights end at the tip of another’s nose. The state has no natural right meddling in the personal and consensual love choices of informed adults. Doubly so when it acts as a proxy for those with theocratic impulses, be it traditional or secular.

Not anti government regulation either. As long as it stays in it’s lane. Ideally as a referee that doesn’t decide outcomes. Otherwise capitalist pigs and wannabe authoritarians with “good intentions” run amok.

I can support all adults’ freedoms without backing into having to turning a blind eye to males and their sycophants bullying women. After all the progress made in reinstating women’s rights and powers that were taken with the rise of civilization, here we are again.

The following poem was written by an Irish, as only a fierce Irish poet can, 14-year-old who is known by her username Brandubh4.

We are women, we are warriors of steel,

Woman is something no man will ever feel,

Woman is not a skill that any man can hone,

Woman is our word, and it is ours alone,

I am not a dress to be worn on a whim,

A man in a dress is nonetheless a him,

Women are not simply what we wear,

If this offends you, I do not care,

I am not an idea in any man’s mind,

And my purpose in life is not to be kind,

So when my rights are trampled every day of the week,

I will not stand by being docile and meek,

I am not defined by sexists eyes,

There is more to a woman than that shallow guise,

That guise of dresses, bikinis, and skirts,

Those clothes are not what womanhood is worth,

I am not a bitch, a terf, a whore, a slag,

Hysterical, a witch, a slut, a hag,

No, I am a woman, I’m a female,

Who will not have her rights be put up for sale,

I am not defined by what men are not,

So to Hell with cis misogynistic rot,

I am a woman, I’m not a subset of my sex,

If this makes me a dinosaur, so be it, I’m a T-Rex,

I am not a bleeder, nor a menstruator,

A womb carrier or a uterus haver,

Those words and phrases are such a sham,

Just call me woman, it is who I am,

We are women, we are warriors of steel,

Woman is something no man will ever feel,

Woman is not a skill that any man can hone,

Woman is our word, and it is ours alone

And now … know the photograph.