Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Liberal "Tolerance"

By Katie Poedtke
Poedtke@Fordham.edu

This morning, as I passed a freshman dorm on my way to the deli, a female student blew the smoke from her freshly lit cigarette in my face and snarled “I HATE McCain!” I assume that the sight of the small McCain-Palin pin I wear on my jacket sparked this disgusting reflex. Such knee-jerk, thoughtless reactions are inarguably much more common amongst liberals than amongst conservatives. Blogger and investigative journalist Michelle Malkin details this fact brilliantly in her 2005 book “Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Going Wild” in which she describes the outrageous behaviors of unhinged liberals after the 2000 and 2004 election cycles, as well as some of the unbelievably hateful treatment that she herself has been subject to as a crusader in the conservative movement.

In every major US city, police forces are preparing for the riots that are expected should Obama lose on Tuesday. Just as I could never imagine any conservatives I know blowing smoke in the face of an Obama supporter, I could never, ever imagine Republicans rioting if an underdog Democratic candidate for president were to win a surprise victory over a media-darling Republican (and I realize I’m pushing the limit of a hypothetical situation with that). Such irrational behavior is not in our nature and it is just plain wrong.

“There are crazies on both sides,” a friend told me in discussion of my run-in today, “take abortion clinic bombers,” he said. Abortion clinic bombers are not conservatives. They are radicals, and indeed, “crazies.” In no way does killing abortionists help the pro-life cause, and the vast, overwhelming majority of conservatives recognizes this clearly and condemn such crazies. Liberal crazies, on the other hand, get much more sympathy from their liberal cohorts in this country. Take Bill Ayers, and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, for example. Conservatives have clear limits on what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, on what is right and what is wrong. Liberals tend to accept a wide “diversity” of philosophies, behaviors, and tactics as helpful in advancing liberal causes, which reveals the dangerous lack of rationality in today’s American liberalism.

Liberals often assert themselves as staunch proponents of diversity and tolerance, yet, in reality, the diversity they promote is a diversity of liberal thought and tolerance and that alone. Conservative thought is outside this spectrum. Conservatism is too diverse to be tolerated. And so we, conservatives, get smoke blown in our faces. Literally. Since our beliefs fall nowhere in-between the bounds of liberal thought, as diverse as that spectrum may be, I suppose we do not deserve their respect.

And they say conservatives are the “close-minded” ones?

6 comments:

Alex Gibbons said...

Ahahahaha! Of course, of course! Everyone knows why liberals are far more prone to outbursts of hatred, and that is because their insides are just a swirling concoction of a murky godlessness.

This is one of my favorite accusations from inept conservatives. The defensive claim that they are targeted by the media and that liberals are meanies is really just a front, a filler replacing intelligent argument because, really, there was nothing intelligent to be said in the first place. And how appropriate was it that you mention Malkin, the woman who forced Dunkin' Donuts to pull a commercial with her knee-jerk reaction to a "jihadi" scarf Rachel Ray wore. And remember when Ann Coulter called John Edwards a faggot on national television?

But I hope you continue this defensive, Coulter-like rhetoric. I'll always know where to go for a good laugh.

Maciej said...

LOLs at "investigative journalist Michelle Malkin". I do wish you guys were around back when I was at Fordham, it would've made for good times.

Anyways, this whole thing about conservatives not having to answer for conservative radicals while liberals have to answer for theirs is a bit senseless, I think.

Also, funny enough, I actually had a Bush voter blow smoke in my face on the steps of Hughes Hall after the 2004 election results came in. Go figure. Keep the laughs coming.

Anonymous said...

I don't know how you can point this accusation at 'liberals' in general. Your bad experience with one smoke-blowing girl doesn't give you proper reason to mock 'liberal tolerance.' In fact, you seem to entirely miss the irony that accusing a broad, ill-defined group of people of intolerance is in fact intolerant.

Also, I'd be careful speaking about tolerance if I were you. Talking about supposed riots if Obama were to lose? I'm not sure where you got this original information, but without sources, it appears like very thinly veiled racism.

Kate Murphy said...

Hey! For some silly reason it wouldn't let me post this the other day when I was logged in as "the paper" (We're a Fordham publication, too! Lol)! Figured I would share!!!!

I look forward to an "intelligent, level-headed" (hell, I'll settle for that is anything better than the post) response on our blog!

http://fupaper.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/suck-it-liberty-forum/

DSKohn said...

"Liberals often tout the merits of allowing for the expression of other people's opinions, and are then shocked to find out that opinions other than their own even exist." - William F. Buckley Jr.

nolita said...

I read this on feministing today and thought of you guys.

New York City blog Gothamist reports that on election night, a teenager was beaten with bats in Staten Island:

17-year-old Ali Kamara, a black Muslim, was walking home on Staten Island Tuesday night after it was announced that Barack Obama was elected president when he was brutally assaulted by four white men. Kamara tells the Daily News: "I see the car coming. They looked at me and said, 'Obama!' They were not happy. They had hoodies on. They started hitting me with bats and my body started vibrating." Luckily, Kamara was able to break away and hide until the thugs left; his mother, who moved with Ali to Staten Island from Liberia in 2000, showed the News a bloody towel she used to staunch his wounds.
The NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the attack as a bias crime.


It sounds like, maybe, police forces should've prepared for what conservatives would do after a mccain loss.

NEWSFLASH: Their are crazy people of all ideological stripes!