1shmael
Really Really Experienced
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2004
- Posts
- 355
Allow me to translate Thomas Sowell's recent most holy text.
The Tolerance of the Right
That people on the political right have a certain set of opinions, just as people do in other parts of the ideological spectrum, is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is how often the opinions of those on the right are accompanied by open mindedness, and even tolerance and love.
Particular issues can arouse passions here and there for anyone with any political views. But, for many on the right, indignation is not a sometime thing. It is, strangely enough, almost entirely absent.
How often have you seen conservatives or libertarians take to the radio waves, hurling slurs or slogans? How often have conservative activists threatened an abortion clinic or taken a baseball bat to gay rights activists? How many feminist speakers or civil rights activists do you see walking around with police protection?
The source of the love coming from the Right, "conservatives" or radicals all too apparent. You have to go deep into the Muslim neighborhoods, online in the Hurricane Katrina discussion chat rooms, turn on Ann Coulter or any talk radio show, or fly all the way to the Deep South to see any kind of intolerance from the Right. If you go to church you'll see the depth of the Right's love and tolerance.
The few and far between targets of the Right's anger - the working class, swarthy people, those nappy headed hos, rappers, opponents of the war, opponents of globalist trade, feminists, anti domestic surveillance activists - are the vast minority of people in America anyway. They're a threat to America and as my online sycophant Vetteman once said, we're going to wipe them out some day soon! Go America!
er, wait a minute...
It is hard to think of a time when Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter have even raised their voices, much less said anything intolerant, but yet they are hated like the devil incarnate.
There has to be some identifiable entity to arouse the ire of the Right. "Wage increases for the working class", for instance.
All sorts of people can have all sorts of beliefs about what wage levels are best from various points of view. But how can people not get enraged over the fact that the working class is on the verge of earning more money?
The tolerant Right has no time to spend even considering the argument that what they call "a minimum wage increase" would in fact destroy the economy, what with these evil, hateful Liberals hounding them 24/7.
Just because minimum wage increases haven't been found to actually hurt the economy in reality, doesn't give the angry Left the right to censor and oppress the tolerant Right's theories. What happens when the sky really does fall? Remember, we told you so!
And now let's talk about tax cuts. Budget deficits have often resulted from runaway spending but seldom from reduced tax rates. Just ask the state of Minnesota. But once again, the angry Left won't let the loving, tolerant Right speak up on that.
The hateful Left is not even above the naked use of force. Look at what they're doing to ram gay marriage down the throats of millions of unwilling Americans. Do you realize every time two gay people get married, one whole blue blooded traditional American family spazzes out and foams at the mouth? Gay marriages are acts of terrorism, yet the angry Left would force America to endure it with no regard to our national security.
Those on the other side may have different arguments. However, the question here is not why we all have different arguments, but why there is such anger on the left and love on the right.
Often it is an exercise in futility even to seek to find a principle behind the anger. For example, the left's hateful intolerance of the Right's "Tough Love" policy toward the working poor. It's as if "Let them eat cake" is a bad thing! No doubt the angry Left will accuse the Right of preaching hate towards working class chump-er, Americans who can't afford health care. Why not turn that hatred towards all the lawsuits being filed against doctors who kill their patients? Why not turn their intolerance towards American pharmaceutical workers and send those jobs overseas to, say, China? It worked for dog food, it can work for pharmaceuticals! Imagine the cheap imported drugs.
If it is hard to find a principle behind what angers the Right, because really, nothing angers the Right.
Well, except swarthy people.