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OT Why the Left is Intolerant to Right.
Liberals Are So Intolerant!
The Right loves to sling this smug accusation at critics from the Left. Mark Morford has a reply By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, August 10, 2005 Printable Version Email This Article Mark Morford Archives Subscribe to Notes & Errata Subscribe to RSS Feed Who is this guy? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= ----- Liberals Are So Intolerant! - The Right loves to sling this smug... 08/10/2005 Dead Cats Hear No Screams - House smell a little sour? Hear stra... 08/05/2005 Who Loves Creepy Megachurches? - Stadium crowds, thousands of ra... 08/03/2005 I get this a lot: Hey Mark, you nefarious and perverted liberal commie tofu-hugging sex-drunk San Francisco medical experiment gone wrong from the land of fruits and nuts (or some iteration thereof -- so cute, my hate mail can be), hey, I notice you love to ridicule those creepy Christian megachurches and you enjoy spanking wide-eyed Mormons and tweaking the litigious nipples of the cult of Scientology and you recoil from toxic Bush policy like a vegetarian recoils from undercooked veal ... And I can tell you think Dick Cheney is pretty much the devil in a defibrillator and that America is so desperately on the wrong track it might as well be North Korea, and you clearly tend to wince in savage karmic pain when looking down the rusty barrel of a welfare-happy red state and I just have one slightly nasty and pointed and cliched question for you -- Here it is: Where is your supposed progressive openness? Your liberal generosity of spirit? I thought you Lefties were all mushy and passive and live-and-let-live? In other words, where is that famous so-called tolerance I thought all you libs were supposed to possess like some sort of gentle polyamorous smiling hug for the world? To which I reply: You cannot be serious. Does the answer really need to be articulated? Is it not painfully obvious? Can I have a shot of Patr=F3n and a long nap before I answer? Here goes ... You, hate-mailers from the sanctimonious Right and even some of you morally paralyzed middle-grounders from the Left, are correct. I am, in fact, deeply intolerant. It is true. I can hide my deep biases and predispositions no longer. I cannot, for example, tolerate the dark and violent road down which this nation seems intent on careening like an Escalade on meth. I cannot tolerate brutal never-ending unnecessary wars and I cannot allow gay rights to be bashed and I truly loathe watching women's rights be slammed back to 1952. Or 1852. I really have little patience for the gutting of our school system and the decimation of science and mysticism and the human mind for the sake of a handful of militant Christian zealots who truly believe the Second Coming will be arriving really soon but hopefully not before the next episode of HBO's "Cathouse: The Series," which they watch in secret with the lights off while clutching a Bible in one hand and a big tub of Country Crock margarine in the other. I cannot tolerate an American president, ostensibly meant to be one of the most articulate and intellectually sophisticated leaders on the planet, mumbling his semicoherent support of the embarrassing nontheory of "Intelligent Design," to the detriment of about 300 years of confirmed science and 10 million years of common sense to the point where America's armies of dumbed-down Ritalin-drunk children look at him and sigh and secretly wish they could have a future devoid of such imbecilic thought but who realize, deep down, they are merely another doomed and fraught generation who will face an increasingly steep uphill battle, who will actually have to fight for fact and intellectual growth and spiritual progress against a rising tide of ignorance and religious hegemony and sanitized revisionist textbooks that insult their understanding and sucker punch their sexuality and bleed their minds dry. I have surpassed my allowable limit for how much environmental devastation I can willingly swallow or how many billion-dollar tax subsidies our cowardly CEO president gives his cronies in Big Energy while doing nothing to ease our gluttony for foreign oil, all the while trying to tell us how many undereducated misguided American teenage soldiers we have to sacrifice at the bloody altar of oil and empire before we can call ourselves king of the bone pile again. But I am perhaps most intolerant, not of Christians per se, not of faith, certainly not of radiant self-defined spirituality, not even of organized religion, though I do fully believe more independent spirits and raw human souls and moist sexual licks have been lost to its often narrow-minded and cosmically rigid brainwashing techniques than have ever been saved. But hey, that's just me. I am most intolerant of, well, of those who allow such intolerance. Of those who would, based on their narrow views of sex, God, love, hope, war, the mind, the Earth, soil and animals and air and water and fire and love and spirit and drugs and guns and dildos, work to legislate those neoconservative beliefs, codify them, make them the law of the land, force their regressive beliefs on everyone else under punishment of violence and beatings and prison. I am, in short, intolerant of intolerance. Oh, let us be clear. I love diversity, religious pluralism, peace and love and pacifism and good drugs and open-mouthed sensuality, happy to let you believe in any god you like and marry any gender you like and let you love how you will and be in full control of your sex and your body and your mind. This, to me, is the America worth fighting for. These are the laws I support. Don't believe in abortion? Don't understand gay people? Sexuality make you rashy? Think Harry Potter teaches kids evil and witchcraft? Don't marry a sexy gay witch abortionist. But don't you dare, based on your limited understanding of God and life, make laws declaring that I can't. But maybe this is the problem, especially here in San Francisco, the World Headquarters of Tolerance, where liberals tend to be so PC and open-minded they merely sigh and shrug when our government and half of the nation move to outlaw everything they stand for, when they openly loathe human rights and try to codify homophobia in the U.S. Constitution and slowly annihilate Roe v. Wade and treat any display of resistance or questioning of the norm the way a dog treats a fire hydrant. Enough. Basta. Let's refashion the old, stagnant definition of tolerance and make it less about merely enduring, merely putting up with the existence of other narrow-minded beliefs no matter how devastating and embarrassing they obviously are to the nation's health. Rather, let's flip that sucker over and baste it with raw goat butter and sear it on the open flames of divine justice and bliss and intellectual fire and white-hot orgasm and burn it new. Let us take the rather flaccid word tolerance and pump it full of Ecstasy and medical marijuana and sake and real divine love and fancy book learnin', turn it on its head and spin it like a bottle and reclaim it from the neocon Right and turn it into, say, giddy outrage. Or radical reconsideration. Or ecstatic rebellion. Or wet conscious electric pointed awareness. Is this not a better way? Let us explode those dead meanings, correct the mistaken neocon dictionary. Let us hurl that dying and mealy and abused term back at their powerful and often bigoted scowl. Here is your weak, ineffectual tolerance. We cannot swallow it anymore. In fact, we are choking on it. |
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wrote: wrote: wrote: Unfortunate. What does it profit progressives if self-defined spokespeople simply sound like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, MIchael Savage, Anne Coulter, (and many of their neo-conservative disciples posting to groups like this) in reverse? The problem is, that if a liberal debates ANYTHING that has spewed from BushCo et al., then the Bush lemmings automatically call that being shrill or whiney. Listen to neo-con propaganda on the radio sometime. Those adjectives "shrill" and "whiney" are used incessantly by a couple of nationally syndicated hosts. It is no surprise when people who regurgitate the nonsense almost line-by-line use the same derisive terms to describe moderates and liberals. I already listened to right wing radio this morning, and I have finally figured out, I think, just why these people (and all propagandists) are so effective. Most people are intellectually lazy- they know they are supposed to have values and opinions, but they aren't sure about how to form them or what to base them on. In an era of instant this, instant that, any of the propagandists (left or right) appeal to people looking for ready made values. You will notice that propagandists have an absolute answer for everything; not merely an opinion or a set of personal beleifs but rather a divinely annointed moral truth. (A truth so divine that it must be made the law of the land and imposed on everybody, left or right). The only problem with adopting ready made values (left or right) rather than developing some genuine,personal beliefs and an individual moral code is that the artificially imposed world view never seems to take permanent root. The neo-converts (to the left or the right) need a new fix almost every day to keep on drinking the Kool Aid without questioning. Oh, yes! If you ever listen to Hannity, if it's a right winger he interviews, he feeds them questions are easy to answer, and shows the right in a good light. If he interviews a left wing sort, then the questions he asks he asks in a way that can't possibly be answered in a good light, and won't let the interviewee respond totally, cutting him off after he hears the key words he wants. You know its working when nearly all of the people on one side of the political/philosophical fence or the other seem to be discussing the same issues, on the same days, and repeating the same arguments (and adjectives) almost word for word. What I find amazing is that the talk show people say that it's the liberals who are making this country so divided, yet when you listen to one, they think (or at least portray that they think) that the left are never correct about anything, are far removed from the issues, etc. That's the farthest thing from the truth that there is. |
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On 11 Aug 2005 09:52:17 -0700, wrote:
wrote: wrote: Unfortunate. What does it profit progressives if self-defined spokespeople simply sound like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, MIchael Savage, Anne Coulter, (and many of their neo-conservative disciples posting to groups like this) in reverse? The problem is, that if a liberal debates ANYTHING that has spewed from BushCo et al., then the Bush lemmings automatically call that being shrill or whiney. Listen to neo-con propaganda on the radio sometime. Those adjectives "shrill" and "whiney" are used incessantly by a couple of nationally syndicated hosts. It is no surprise when people who regurgitate the nonsense almost line-by-line use the same derisive terms to describe moderates and liberals. I already listened to right wing radio this morning, and I have finally figured out, I think, just why these people (and all propagandists) are so effective. Most people are intellectually lazy- they know they are supposed to have values and opinions, but they aren't sure about how to form them or what to base them on. In an era of instant this, instant that, any of the propagandists (left or right) appeal to people looking for ready made values. You will notice that propagandists have an absolute answer for everything; not merely an opinion or a set of personal beleifs but rather a divinely annointed moral truth. (A truth so divine that it must be made the law of the land and imposed on everybody, left or right). The only problem with adopting ready made values (left or right) rather than developing some genuine,personal beliefs and an individual moral code is that the artificially imposed world view never seems to take permanent root. The neo-converts (to the left or the right) need a new fix almost every day to keep on drinking the Kool Aid without questioning. You know its working when nearly all of the people on one side of the political/philosophical fence or the other seem to be discussing the same issues, on the same days, and repeating the same arguments (and adjectives) almost word for word. People who have been robbed of the ability to form individual opinions (by the left or by the right) are victims. Those victims should be pitied, not challenged. As a people, we likely aren't going to wake up to the fact that the current polarization is serving the interests of a small group of powerful people who really aren't liberal or conservative- but who are enemies of freedom and democracy and have much to gain by fanning the flames of hatred and intolerance between various political and philosophical parties. If we're concentrating on the red guy, or the blue gal, we're distracted from the low profile creeps who hope to profit from the demise of our free society. It's sure nice to see that all the liberals have something new to say every day, Chuck! -- John H. On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD |
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On 11 Aug 2005 10:16:39 -0700, wrote:
wrote: wrote: wrote: Unfortunate. What does it profit progressives if self-defined spokespeople simply sound like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, MIchael Savage, Anne Coulter, (and many of their neo-conservative disciples posting to groups like this) in reverse? The problem is, that if a liberal debates ANYTHING that has spewed from BushCo et al., then the Bush lemmings automatically call that being shrill or whiney. Listen to neo-con propaganda on the radio sometime. Those adjectives "shrill" and "whiney" are used incessantly by a couple of nationally syndicated hosts. It is no surprise when people who regurgitate the nonsense almost line-by-line use the same derisive terms to describe moderates and liberals. I already listened to right wing radio this morning, and I have finally figured out, I think, just why these people (and all propagandists) are so effective. Most people are intellectually lazy- they know they are supposed to have values and opinions, but they aren't sure about how to form them or what to base them on. In an era of instant this, instant that, any of the propagandists (left or right) appeal to people looking for ready made values. You will notice that propagandists have an absolute answer for everything; not merely an opinion or a set of personal beleifs but rather a divinely annointed moral truth. (A truth so divine that it must be made the law of the land and imposed on everybody, left or right). The only problem with adopting ready made values (left or right) rather than developing some genuine,personal beliefs and an individual moral code is that the artificially imposed world view never seems to take permanent root. The neo-converts (to the left or the right) need a new fix almost every day to keep on drinking the Kool Aid without questioning. Oh, yes! If you ever listen to Hannity, if it's a right winger he interviews, he feeds them questions are easy to answer, and shows the right in a good light. If he interviews a left wing sort, then the questions he asks he asks in a way that can't possibly be answered in a good light, and won't let the interviewee respond totally, cutting him off after he hears the key words he wants. You know its working when nearly all of the people on one side of the political/philosophical fence or the other seem to be discussing the same issues, on the same days, and repeating the same arguments (and adjectives) almost word for word. What I find amazing is that the talk show people say that it's the liberals who are making this country so divided, yet when you listen to one, they think (or at least portray that they think) that the left are never correct about anything, are far removed from the issues, etc. That's the farthest thing from the truth that there is. You guys should spend less time listening to and memorizing (I guess) Limbaugh and Hannity. My advice would be to listen to Air America. You won't find that upsetting in the least, and they speak nothing but the truth (or so I hear). -- John H. On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD |
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"John H." wrote in message ... On 11 Aug 2005 09:52:17 -0700, wrote: wrote: wrote: Unfortunate. What does it profit progressives if self-defined spokespeople simply sound like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, MIchael Savage, Anne Coulter, (and many of their neo-conservative disciples posting to groups like this) in reverse? The problem is, that if a liberal debates ANYTHING that has spewed from BushCo et al., then the Bush lemmings automatically call that being shrill or whiney. Listen to neo-con propaganda on the radio sometime. Those adjectives "shrill" and "whiney" are used incessantly by a couple of nationally syndicated hosts. It is no surprise when people who regurgitate the nonsense almost line-by-line use the same derisive terms to describe moderates and liberals. I already listened to right wing radio this morning, and I have finally figured out, I think, just why these people (and all propagandists) are so effective. Most people are intellectually lazy- they know they are supposed to have values and opinions, but they aren't sure about how to form them or what to base them on. In an era of instant this, instant that, any of the propagandists (left or right) appeal to people looking for ready made values. You will notice that propagandists have an absolute answer for everything; not merely an opinion or a set of personal beleifs but rather a divinely annointed moral truth. (A truth so divine that it must be made the law of the land and imposed on everybody, left or right). The only problem with adopting ready made values (left or right) rather than developing some genuine,personal beliefs and an individual moral code is that the artificially imposed world view never seems to take permanent root. The neo-converts (to the left or the right) need a new fix almost every day to keep on drinking the Kool Aid without questioning. You know its working when nearly all of the people on one side of the political/philosophical fence or the other seem to be discussing the same issues, on the same days, and repeating the same arguments (and adjectives) almost word for word. People who have been robbed of the ability to form individual opinions (by the left or by the right) are victims. Those victims should be pitied, not challenged. As a people, we likely aren't going to wake up to the fact that the current polarization is serving the interests of a small group of powerful people who really aren't liberal or conservative- but who are enemies of freedom and democracy and have much to gain by fanning the flames of hatred and intolerance between various political and philosophical parties. If we're concentrating on the red guy, or the blue gal, we're distracted from the low profile creeps who hope to profit from the demise of our free society. It's sure nice to see that all the liberals have something new to say every day, Chuck! Especially when the political liebrals and the MSM all end up using the same talking points.......remember "gravitas"? -- John H. On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD |
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"John H." wrote in message ... On 11 Aug 2005 10:16:39 -0700, wrote: wrote: wrote: wrote: Unfortunate. What does it profit progressives if self-defined spokespeople simply sound like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, MIchael Savage, Anne Coulter, (and many of their neo-conservative disciples posting to groups like this) in reverse? The problem is, that if a liberal debates ANYTHING that has spewed from BushCo et al., then the Bush lemmings automatically call that being shrill or whiney. Listen to neo-con propaganda on the radio sometime. Those adjectives "shrill" and "whiney" are used incessantly by a couple of nationally syndicated hosts. It is no surprise when people who regurgitate the nonsense almost line-by-line use the same derisive terms to describe moderates and liberals. I already listened to right wing radio this morning, and I have finally figured out, I think, just why these people (and all propagandists) are so effective. Most people are intellectually lazy- they know they are supposed to have values and opinions, but they aren't sure about how to form them or what to base them on. In an era of instant this, instant that, any of the propagandists (left or right) appeal to people looking for ready made values. You will notice that propagandists have an absolute answer for everything; not merely an opinion or a set of personal beleifs but rather a divinely annointed moral truth. (A truth so divine that it must be made the law of the land and imposed on everybody, left or right). The only problem with adopting ready made values (left or right) rather than developing some genuine,personal beliefs and an individual moral code is that the artificially imposed world view never seems to take permanent root. The neo-converts (to the left or the right) need a new fix almost every day to keep on drinking the Kool Aid without questioning. Oh, yes! If you ever listen to Hannity, if it's a right winger he interviews, he feeds them questions are easy to answer, and shows the right in a good light. If he interviews a left wing sort, then the questions he asks he asks in a way that can't possibly be answered in a good light, and won't let the interviewee respond totally, cutting him off after he hears the key words he wants. You know its working when nearly all of the people on one side of the political/philosophical fence or the other seem to be discussing the same issues, on the same days, and repeating the same arguments (and adjectives) almost word for word. What I find amazing is that the talk show people say that it's the liberals who are making this country so divided, yet when you listen to one, they think (or at least portray that they think) that the left are never correct about anything, are far removed from the issues, etc. That's the farthest thing from the truth that there is. You guys should spend less time listening to and memorizing (I guess) Limbaugh and Hannity. My advice would be to listen to Air America. You won't find that upsetting in the least, and they speak nothing but the truth (or so I hear). Kevin wouldn't know the truth if it bitch slapped him. -- John H. On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD |
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