Friends Don’t Care

The subject keeps coming up about people making a big deal about this, that or what other thing one should care so hard about.

I don’t care.

I don’t care who you sleep with, singly or in groups, or with no one, provided that everyone involved is a consenting adult.  I don’t care what gods or goddesses you worship, or none again, provided you don’t try to use force (including government force) to impose your religious beliefs on me.

And, frankly, my friend Michael Z. Williamson said it well in this essay from 2001 (used with permission):

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Friends Don’t Care

by Michael Z. Williamson
July 4, 2001

I can be your best friend.

Not because I care, but because I don’t.

I don’t care what church, if any, you go to. I don’t care if you are Church of God, Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ, Church of Christ reformed, Church of Christ Scientist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Byzantine Catholic, Roman Catholic, Jewish Congregationalist, Hindu, Shinto, Islamic, Buddhist, Greek Orthodox, Native American, Irish Druidic, Scandinavian Druidhe, Pagan, Wiccan…Hell, I don’t care if you worship the Great Pumpkin. Or no deity at all. How you spend your Sundays, Saturdays, Fridays, Tuesday evenings, full Moons, or eclipses is up to you.

I don’t care if you have sex with men, women, both, or neither. If it’s in private, and they are freely consenting adults, it’s your business. I may not like it myself, but I don’t care about you.

I don’t care what brand of beer you drink or not, if you drink wine or not, liquor or not. I don’t care if you brew your own, grow your own or roll your own. I don’t care if you smoke dope, rope, or nightshade. It’s your body, poison it any way you wish. Just keep the residue in your own home, okay?

Vegetarian? Okay. Vegan? Great. Rare steak only, or raw rattlesnake? Cool. Squid with the tentacles still wiggling? Suits me just fine. 

Are you skinny? Fat? Ugly? Overdressed? Underdressed? Naked? Hey, it’s your life, do what you wish. If I don’t like it, I won’t watch.

I am a politician’s worst nightmare. I can’t be made to hate, I can’t be panicked by the strange, and I’ll react ungraciously to attempts to inspire me so. I vote on issues, not on smokescreens, and no Orwellian pigs in suits need apply.

I’m not part of a vast conspiracy to put Candidate X into office–Candidate X is an idiot, and so is Candidate Y. I voted for the Manchurian Candidate myself, because I don’t care. I don’t belong to the Hate Group of the Month Club on the Evening news, because I don’t care. How can you possibly think I have anything in common with them?

Oh, right. I own guns. So do they. I’ll bet a bunch of them read Doctor Seuss growing up, too, as did I. I don’t see how that’s relevant, either.

So that’s it. Power scares you. And by not being a pawn, by being able to think, and by daring to think differently from you, I scare you. Well, relax, because I don’t care.

Read the papers of the country, or for that matter, the world. You’ll find me right there defending the unpopular in letters to the editor, in marches, in protests and sit-ins. I don’t care so damned much that I’ll go far out of my way to prove it. When your oppressors refuse to believe I don’t care, I’m willing to reinforce the point…WITH force. 

The only actions of yours I care about are those that actually affect me. Try to rape my wife, and you die. Try to assault me, and you die. Touch my children…Well, then you’ll die slowly, as a lesson to others.

Try to take my guns away, or send someone else to do so…well, then I care. Keep in mind–they protect you, too. The people who DO care about silly details of your life DO have guns, whether you call them extremists, fanatics, cults, militias, or Federal Agents. It’s easy to hate a name, isn’t it? I’d hate the names, too, if it would make any difference, but it doesn’t. Hateful people hide everywhere, and I don’t care. Only when they ACT on that hate do I become aroused. By acting on hate, they interfere with my ability not to care. And that just ruins my whole day. Sometimes it takes the threat of force to prove I don’t care. That’s why I have the guns.

Why would you want to take my guns away, knowing I don’t care? I’m no threat. I’m your best friend. I don’t even care if THEY have guns. I don’t even care if YOU have a gun. I care even less if you don’t like ME having a gun.

So do me a favor and don’t come to my door asking me to turn over my tools of reason.

Because I don’t care who interferes with my right to not care. 

And neither do my guns.

Copyright 2001 by Michael Z. Williamson. Permission is granted to copy in whole for non-profit purposes, provided due credit is given. Please inform the author directly via his site Michael Z. Williamson or through http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com when you do. Mr. Williamson’s online archive is found here: http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com/Williamson.