I’m fortunate in that my few personal political conversations with the Other Side are with people who don’t want to be rude to me, but I can still see that it’s getting out of hand elsewhere:
Joel Pollak at Breitbart.com writes, Liberal Intolerance: You Believe What?:
I was at a dinner recently where I happened to be seated at a table with new acquaintances of the liberal political persuasion.
We went around the table introducing ourselves. As I said that I work for a “conservative website,” a man at the far end of the table made his displeasure known by booing. He wasn’t kidding.
These were professional, accomplished, senior members of the community. They had never met a conservative before. Their first reaction was hostile. No one chided the man who booed, or apologized on his behalf for his rudeness, or laughed to break the tension.
But it happens. And it’s largely one-sided. And it’s one major reason why the Right’s base is militantly indifferent about any argument that the discourse is being poisoned. It got poisoned a while back; it’s just that the effects are starting to affect the chattering classes.
Moe Lane
The left “poisoned the discourse” by treating every disagreement with them as evidence of evil intent. By ignoring every explanation of the reasons for our positions and instead declaring we’re evil, greedy, hated-filled monsters. By failing to police their own ranks and allowing the most vile and violent to become prominent in their movement. It’s hard to feel the least bit of charity towards people who call you a monster while lauding the accomplishments of mass-murderers.
And I would daresay that the man who booed was probably expecting it of the person who worked for a Conservative website to be ashamed, feel guilty, be “put in their place”, and otherwise withdraw from all levels of conversation (becuz Political Correctness).
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Once upon a time, Conservatives might have complied with those unspoken expectations. That was then. This is now. Things change.
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Liberals might as well get used to it, because I can’t see Conservatives allowing themselves to be put back in the PC box.
The discourse has been poisoned for a while now. The difference now is that conservatives don’t care and push back.
#WAR.
Let’s see…
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The left is “allowed” to call me a teabagger, a terrorist, a brainwashed baby killer (but thank you for your service), an arsonist, a suicide bomber, a Christofascist, and a right wing neanderthal knuckle dragger. But speaking in my defense causes them to whine “Why are you so MEAN!?”
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Agreed with Finrod except for the fact that I stopped caring years ago.
It is maddening. I travel with a group of liberal co-workers and I’ve hear it all from Palin digs and healthcare gripes to blaming GOP that we aren’t on metric system and maintaining that countries like the Dakotas shouldn’t have two Senators. Even on a recent conference call the shutdown, which is in no way an impact on our business or what we do, was brought up for no reason
But now our company has asked us to read a business book by a well known libertarian activist and successful businessman and the gripes keep coming. So much so that it is hard to concentrate on work. I’ve listened to this stuff from them days in and days out, but they can’t handle reading a book that is less than 200 pages on business.
I made the mistake of ripping on Alec Baldwin and was told that if someone listened to some of the things I say to my kids they’d probably think the same things of me. I let it go, but it still angers me. It was too personal and simply untrue. (I guess they were referring to the message left on his daughter’s machine. My crime to get this was too say that Alec Baldwin is a little weird and unhinged).