I blogged about tolerance once. I don’t much care for the word when it’s used to describe the desired end state of how one person feels about another. I prefer acceptance for that.
You know, though, I’ve been considering that I’m less polemically tolerant than I once was. I’ve been a big “respect all views” guy for a long time, but there are some things for which I am beginning to lose patience.
- I am less tolerant of the view that liberal mobs, screaming and burning the targets of their derision in effigy, are a sign of a healthy and vibrant democracy, while peaceful, respectful, well-behaved gatherings of conservative and libertarian citizens concerned about government spending are powder kegs awaiting the slightest spark to set off another Oklahoma City bombing.
- I am less tolerant of the belief that (insert mainstream media news outlet here) is a bastion of objectivity and journalistic integrity, possessing as its only agenda the sober and passionless transmission of information to its audience, while Fox News is a screeching right-wing hate machine.
- I am less tolerant of people for whom capacity to believe what the president says becomes limitless when he is a liberal Democrat, and nonexistent when he is a Republican.
- See previous bullet; substitute “respect for the office of the presidency” for “capacity to believe what the president says.”
- I am less tolerant of people either too ignorant or too stupid to know what the Constitution says, as well as attempts to radicalize questions of constitutionality when raised in objection.
“People who believe fairy tales should have to live at home with their parents…we cannot release them into the world and they certainly should not vote!” – Frances Taylor
If I recall correctly, this was my friend Frances responding to someone who believed that Obamacare would provide new insurance coverage to 35 million people while reducing federal deficits. Was she kidding? Mostly. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe not. Probably not much.
Folks, I’m going to have to ask you to get smarter. You know who you are. Thanking you very kindly in advance.
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BUT….each of your bullets could be flipped around to the progressive perspective.
Numerous peaceful liberal protests vs. Tea Partiers carrying Swastikas and shouting obscenities.
Fox = Fair and Balanced while [insert network] = liberal propoganda.
Like the judges decision = Constitutionalist
Don’t like judges decision = Activist Judge
Etc. etc.
It all depends on your own level of cognitive dissonance.
I’m REALLY intolerant of the belief that all Christians are conservatives.
Peace,
Smart Progressive Christian Dad
Guy, I see you’re a “progressive” abuser. I’ll try to overlook that.
Cognitive dissonance has nothing to do with it. I reject utterly that there is valid equivocation between my statements and their opposites. Remember when CBS talk show host Craig Kilborn showed Bush giving a speech, and put the graphic “SNIPERS WANTED” on the screen? Hey, how about a movie about assassinating a sitting president? How about a novel about the same thing?
Betty Williams is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Know what she said? “I have a very hard time with this word ‘non-violence,’ because I don’t believe that I am non-violent. . . . Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.”
This (tip of the iceberg, really) was in addition to screaming, burning, stinking (if my past experience remains true) liberal mobs in the streets. Where was the somber warning from esteemed “elder statesmen” (or whatever we should call Bill Clinton) that extreme rhetoric just might lead to domestic terrorism?
Compare and contrast with the relentlessly peaceful tea party protests.
The Fox News point is that all news has a point of view. Why do you think Fox has an audience in the first place? The argument structure that I hear, though, time after time–including from the White House–is that there are any number of legitimate news outlets, and then there’s Fox.
Wrong.
I tend to like judges’ decisions that are consistent with the Constitution.