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“Just My Opinion” Can Go F* Itself
4 months ago
Ah yes, the most sacred incantation of the lazy thinker, the coward's final dodge, the conversational nuke of mediocrity:
“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”
What a deeply stupid phrase. What a festering landfill of cowardice we’ve built around those seven little words. It's the last bastion of people who want to say hateful, wrong, damaging things but don’t want to be held accountable for it. It’s the intellectual equivalent of farting in an elevator and insisting it’s your right.
Look. You are allowed to like pineapple on pizza. I am allowed to think that makes you a war criminal. We are all allowed our preferences, our tastes, our subjective experiences of reality. That’s the beauty of existence: we’re all little meat goblins rolling around in the absurdity of life, feeling weird things about weird things. Hurrah.
But that’s not what we mean when we say “opinion,” is it?
Because when your opinion is that trans people don’t deserve rights? When your opinion is that vaccines are a government mind control plot? When your opinion is that the Earth is flat because YouTube told you so, and therefore science is a global hoax? Sorry, that’s not “just your opinion.” That’s ignorance, weaponized. That’s wrong. Not subjectively. Not morally grey. Objectively. Wrong.
Your opinion isn’t valid just because you hold it. You don’t get to bypass fact and consequence with a shrug and a smirk. This isn't some cosmic preschool where everyone's finger-painting on equal footing. Some people know more. Some people study more. Some people have spent their whole lives learning and listening and refining what they believe because it’s backed up by evidence, data, empathy, lived experience, reality.
And some people have spent their lives yelling into mirrors and calling it research.
Let’s be brutally clear: the “opinion” of a climate scientist on climate change is worth more than the “opinion” of your uncle Greg, who once saw a meme about snow in Texas. A medical expert’s opinion on vaccines is worth more than a wellness influencer who sells moon water and vibes. A trans person’s opinion on gender is worth more than J.K. Rowling’s fever dream blog posts of condescending cruelty wrapped in smug imperial grammar.
And when people with power and platforms spew these “opinions,” they’re not just chatting at brunch — they’re shaping policies, targeting communities, and fuelling the bonfire of bad faith. If you punch someone in the face, you don’t get to claim “that’s just my opinion” about their jawline. Shitty opinions lead to shitty actions. Bigotry starts with “just asking questions,” and ends in someone losing healthcare, losing safety, losing their goddamn life.
You know what “just my opinion” really means? It means “I don’t want to change.” It means “I want to be cruel without criticism.” It means “I’d rather cling to my convenient delusions than do the difficult work of being better.”
But we can be better. We should be better. Empathy doesn’t mean letting people believe whatever they want no matter the harm — it means caring enough to challenge them. Education doesn’t mean tolerating lies — it means dragging truth into the light, even when it burns. Opinions can change. That’s the whole goddamn point. Growth isn’t comfortable — but neither is being buried under the weight of everyone else’s entitled ignorance.
So no. Not every opinion deserves respect.
Some opinions deserve a correction.
Some deserve a rebuttal.
And some deserve to be hurled into the sun, still smoldering with the heat of their own self-satisfied stupidity.
And that’s not just my opinion.
That’s reality, baby.
“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”
What a deeply stupid phrase. What a festering landfill of cowardice we’ve built around those seven little words. It's the last bastion of people who want to say hateful, wrong, damaging things but don’t want to be held accountable for it. It’s the intellectual equivalent of farting in an elevator and insisting it’s your right.
Look. You are allowed to like pineapple on pizza. I am allowed to think that makes you a war criminal. We are all allowed our preferences, our tastes, our subjective experiences of reality. That’s the beauty of existence: we’re all little meat goblins rolling around in the absurdity of life, feeling weird things about weird things. Hurrah.
But that’s not what we mean when we say “opinion,” is it?
Because when your opinion is that trans people don’t deserve rights? When your opinion is that vaccines are a government mind control plot? When your opinion is that the Earth is flat because YouTube told you so, and therefore science is a global hoax? Sorry, that’s not “just your opinion.” That’s ignorance, weaponized. That’s wrong. Not subjectively. Not morally grey. Objectively. Wrong.
Your opinion isn’t valid just because you hold it. You don’t get to bypass fact and consequence with a shrug and a smirk. This isn't some cosmic preschool where everyone's finger-painting on equal footing. Some people know more. Some people study more. Some people have spent their whole lives learning and listening and refining what they believe because it’s backed up by evidence, data, empathy, lived experience, reality.
And some people have spent their lives yelling into mirrors and calling it research.
Let’s be brutally clear: the “opinion” of a climate scientist on climate change is worth more than the “opinion” of your uncle Greg, who once saw a meme about snow in Texas. A medical expert’s opinion on vaccines is worth more than a wellness influencer who sells moon water and vibes. A trans person’s opinion on gender is worth more than J.K. Rowling’s fever dream blog posts of condescending cruelty wrapped in smug imperial grammar.
And when people with power and platforms spew these “opinions,” they’re not just chatting at brunch — they’re shaping policies, targeting communities, and fuelling the bonfire of bad faith. If you punch someone in the face, you don’t get to claim “that’s just my opinion” about their jawline. Shitty opinions lead to shitty actions. Bigotry starts with “just asking questions,” and ends in someone losing healthcare, losing safety, losing their goddamn life.
You know what “just my opinion” really means? It means “I don’t want to change.” It means “I want to be cruel without criticism.” It means “I’d rather cling to my convenient delusions than do the difficult work of being better.”
But we can be better. We should be better. Empathy doesn’t mean letting people believe whatever they want no matter the harm — it means caring enough to challenge them. Education doesn’t mean tolerating lies — it means dragging truth into the light, even when it burns. Opinions can change. That’s the whole goddamn point. Growth isn’t comfortable — but neither is being buried under the weight of everyone else’s entitled ignorance.
So no. Not every opinion deserves respect.
Some opinions deserve a correction.
Some deserve a rebuttal.
And some deserve to be hurled into the sun, still smoldering with the heat of their own self-satisfied stupidity.
And that’s not just my opinion.
That’s reality, baby.
Personal views have caused war, famine, plague, pollution, poverty, and every other human evil. Opinions (or in this instance "opinions" but they're inherently less) do not exist in a vacuum exempt from the universal law of Cause and Effect.
Opinions should be mundane (like you said pineapple on pizza), oh you don't like (insert latest media) because it simply doesn't vibe with you? Sure that's an opinion. But next time I hear some fascist try and claim that their views about some bullshit like "y'know Hitler wasn't all that bad" or something else utterly braindead, I think I might catch a battery charge.