Back in the day liberals would defend some of their outrageous ideas by saying, “I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Basically saying that they could say anything but so could you.
kemojr on January 24, 2013 at 12:02 PM

I’m not sure what “day” you’re talking about.

There was a time when the word “liberal” meant someone who believed in limited central government.

And, yeah, the people now referred to as “conservatives” had the same attitude then that we still have today.

how would you like to be treated by liberals then? why do you weep when they treat you as the enemy as well?

sesquipedalian on January 24, 2013 at 10:54 AM

Always love seeing the anti-war Left use war terms to describe their own actions. What’s even funnier is that they’re too dumb to realize it.

A+

If you believe your ideas are the absolute truth then anyone who does not hold the same belief must obviously be against the absolute truth. Therefore any opposition has to be evil because they oppose the absolute truth. I think most people would understand how hard it is to compromise with or even give a fair hearing to “evil” ideas.

I think most conservatives tend to think ‘we want the same thing but think that there is a different way to go about it’. They tend to accept that their position is their view and that someone else might hold a different view. However the opposition is not thought of as “evil” per se, but as mistaken, ignorant, etc. It is a whole lot easier to tolerant when you think the opposition can be educated (or debated) into changing its position.

Naturally there are exceptions and radical-types on the conservative side, but I think that overall that conservative types would tend to be more open to debate than liberal/progressive types. They don’t view debate as a betrayal of their beliefs.

I work in Austin, liberals are very combative when they are in their realm, and they believe the internet to be their domainburserker on January 24, 2013 at 2:04 PM

Preventive Dentistry.

Powers explained that after getting out of her own “Democratic bubble,” she noticed that conservatives tend to be more open to hearing opposing viewpoints than liberals.

Likewise with a pile of other libs-turned-moderates/conservatives who would agree with her, such as Bernie Goldberg, Dennis Miller, David Mamet. By and large, modern libs favor tolerance only when it works to their favor.

And I sit there, nursing my beer, quietly amazed by these tolerant, big tent progressives.

itsspideyman on January 24, 2013 at 9:36 AM

Bubba, you need to speak up now and clear the air, or things are going to explode at some later date. Marshal your arguments and wade into combat, or suffer in silence – I know what my answer would be if these were people I would be forced to spend time with in the future.

The word tolerance is a PC club used to silence dissent. Tolerance for stupidity and evil is just plain stupid and evil.
Flange on January 24, 2013 at 9:05 AM

Tolerance is one of a great many words the LiberalSpeak dictionary redefines into its own antonym.

The word tolerance means to hate the holy living hell out of something, but put up with it anyway. No liberal has ever done that and no liberal ever will.

Are liberals happy if you tolerate homosexuality? Of course not; you must EMBRACE it and publically sing its praises — or else they treat you as a member of a pitchfork-weilding mob going house to house, kicking bedroom doors open and murdering fornicators.

Do liberals tolerate peaceable gun owners? Not for a second. Every time some psycho steals a gun and goes on a rampage, in the minds of liberals, then both he and the legal gun owner who finally ends his spree become indistinguishable partners in a gang of a hundred million fellow criminals.

how would you like to be treated by liberals then? why do you weep when they treat you as the enemy as well?

sesquipedalian on January 24, 2013 at 10:54 AM

Conservatives didn’t create “speech codes” in schools to shut up any opposition to their ideology. Liberals often attack freedom of speech because that speech is “intolerant”. Liberals use “tolerance” as an excuse to violate all sorts of natural rights.

It’s refreshing though that you admit this – most liberals have a hard time acknowledging that they don’t really believe in liberty and republican government where the people are sovereign.

i never said that the constitution was mine any more than it was yours. i did say it can be rewritten if we – a majority of Americans, our will expressed through our elected representatives – so please.

sesquipedalian on January 24, 2013 at 11:10 AM

I will not go all RogerB on you, but you did write that.

It takes a bit more than a majority.

in fact, i’m not the least bit interested in changing your mind about anything. i actually would like you to be even crazier than you are now.

Just so. Just so.

They all can go die in a fire, slowly, as far as I’m concerned.

Tolerance is one thing, and I’m as tolerant as they come. But what I will no longer tolerate is the kind of condescending, you’re Conservative, so you have no right to speak or even exist, kind of attitude that the “enlightened” ones always have.

The mentality that the Bill of Rights somehow only ensures they’re right to speak, while all it affords anyone else is a right to listen and remain silent. The mentality that if you’re Conservative, you’re nothing but a backwoods, inbred, Bible thumping, gun-clinging, global warming denying, Tea-Bagging, uneducated rube.

But the reality, is that most of them don’t have the slightest sparkle of understanding of what being Conservative really means other than what they read on HuffPo or Slate or MSLSD, or are told in ten-second sound bites from their Messiah and King or one of his henchmen.

Tolerance is fine and good, but it goes both ways. THEY never seem to have any shred of that which they so brazenly demand from the rest of us.

how would you like to be treated by liberals then? why do you weep when they treat you as the enemy as well?

sesquipedalian on January 24, 2013 at 10:54 AM

It’s the egregious double standard. Progressives have long claimed that tolerance is an essential virtue tied up with justice and equality and all the rest of that crap. Liberals try to shame their opponents into abiding by some notion of tolerance while freely violating their own supposed values.

The media treats liberals and conservatives very differently but they offer a public face of being impartial and “fact based”. Of course being “fact based” is a liberal delusion anyway.

It’s also the way liberal politicians approach their rhetoric. Take any Obama speech – including his recent inaugural – and he regularly lies about the values he has (like limits on government, a place for civil society, and liberty) and portrays all of his opponents as greedy, corrupt, and unreasonable. Obama demands a “balanced” approach to debt reduction but his plans are 90% tax and spend and 10% accounting gimmicks and defense cuts.

Liberals have also long used “tolerance” as a shield against arguments regarding their progressive policies. You don’t think banks should be forced to give out loans to people who can’t afford them? You’re racist.

Claiming your opponent is intolerant is a classic liberal tactic of using personal attacks instead of making actual arguments.

2. tolerance is overrated.

sesquipedalian on January 24, 2013 at 10:21 AM

You should add these:

3. Forming coherent arguments is overrated.

4. Facts are negotiable, interchangable, and should be set aside.

5. When you cannot win an argument, default to the ad hominen attack; then, repeat the attack often.

6. Make no effort to understand your opponant’s point of view.

7. Accuse your opponant of being unequal to the task of understanding your P.O.V.

You are not seeking a common ground.
A while back, you yourself said the Constitution was yours and that you’d rewrite as you pleased.
That is a pretty good way to make an enemy.

Jabberwock on January 24, 2013 at 11:02 AM

you’re not seeking a common ground, either. in fact, i’m not the least bit interested in changing your mind about anything. i actually would like you to be even crazier than you are now.

i never said that the constitution was mine any more than it was yours. i did say it can be rewritten if we – a majority of Americans, our will expressed through our elected representatives – so please.

And yes, tolerance is overrated. Liberals aren’t seeking common ground. They are the enemy not allies in a common fight. They should be treated accordingly.

Happy Nomad on January 24, 2013 at 10:39 AM
how would you like to be treated by liberals then? why do you weep when they treat you as the enemy as well?

sesquipedalian on January 24, 2013 at 10:54 AM

Answered before being asked.
You are not seeking a common ground.
A while back, you yourself said the Constitution was yours and that you’d rewrite as you pleased.
That is a pretty good way to make an enemy.

2. Has there been a website constructed by any conservative for the sole purpose of insulting and demeaning President Obama, like the “Smirking Chimp” website was for George W. Bush? Sure, there have been some occasional tmblrs that are tasteless, but usually they are pulled by poeple on our side. Do an image search for “Bush=Hitler” and see how many images you get.

3. Are there conservatives attacking liberals on Twitter and getting their accounts suspended? This happens every single day to conservatives. I am not a heavy Twitter user, and it’s happened to me twice in the last month, both times when I simply tried to engage in a civil converation on a liberal hashtag and present dome facts. A conservative has fought back by starting a list and website called the Twitter Gulag Defense Network, which thousands of conservatives have signed up for.

Liberals simply cannot stand any questioning of their faith. Amazing for the people who CONSTANTLY shout about us conservative neanderthals clinging to our religion and trying to foist it on others. Liberalism IS a religion. Everything liberals want to do is based on nothing but faith – faith in government finally working when it has never worked before, faith that massive borrowing and spending will fix the economy when that has never hapened before, faith that forcing Americans to drink smaller sodas will make us all happier and healthier; you name it.

cheeflo on January 24, 2013 at 10:52 AM

True! ; ) More of a Brazilian Jiujitsu guy myself though. Lol!

So, if I understand you, one has to be a screaming irrational shrew like Rachael Madcow to affirm their liberal creds?

what i mean is that powers is employed by conservative media so they can scream “even liberal kirsten powers say conservatives are right/unfairly maligned on [insert topic du jour]”

And yes, tolerance is overrated. Liberals aren’t seeking common ground. They are the enemy not allies in a common fight. They should be treated accordingly.

Happy Nomad on January 24, 2013 at 10:39 AM

how would you like to be treated by liberals then? why do you weep when they treat you as the enemy as well?

Go find a ditch to die in.
lostmotherland on December 21, 2012 at 6:49 PM

As I have said before, I am amazed at how liberals can openly express the most vile calumnious stereotyping of conservatives and Republicans while working every day with Republicans and Conservatives who are nothing like the stereotypes. It is Orwellian doublethinking. My mother was a coal-miner’s daughter Union Democrat. Her four sons all are Republicans. She would sit at the dinner table and proclaim that “all” Republicans are this or that and do this or that to we Republicans who did and were nothing of the sort. The ability to completely shed any congnitive dissonance was amazing.