Another Day in the Life of a Tolerant Liberal

It was almost too perfect a reflection on the intolerance of the “tolerance” crowd when a blogger yesterday responded to my constitutional arguments by calling me an A’hole, saying that he does not “take kindly” to people disagreeing with him, and erasing the indication that my blog had linked to his so that none of his readers would have to be exposed to any differing views, either.  (Surprisingly, if you block out everyone who doesn’t agree with you, you will find yourself surrounded by people who agree with you!)

Racism, Racism, Everywhere! Plus: ‘Fact-checking’ Paul Ryan

Lately a lot of liberals seem to think that our desire to elect Republicans can only be explained by racism.

Rich Lowry discusses some examples (full version at Politico, short version at National Review Online).

[Michael Eric Dyson] wrote a blog post for The New York Times contending that, by attacking Obama for cutting Medicare to pay for “Obamacare,” the Romney campaign is engaged in a politics of “racially freighted resource competition.”

Why? Because Medicare beneficiaries are “largely white” and “Obamacare” beneficiaries will be “disproportionately minority.” Edsall calls this supposed strategy “subtle.” Very, very subtle.

Liberals More than Twice as Likely to De-friend You for Disagreeing with Them

I was talking with a couple of friends recently about how (in my experience) liberals and conservatives use Facebook differently.  The vast majority of political commentary that comes across my news feed is from my liberal friends, not conservatives, and much of it is snide or flippant.  Just for example, at the moment, my feed includes (on the one hand) one Christian suggesting that Obama is attacking Christianity, and (on the other hand)

• a liberal relaying a “No, you can’t deny women their basic rights and pretend it’s about your ‘religious freedom'” picture,

• a liberal posting a snide Tina Fey quote about Sarah Palin,

Popularity and Prosperity

I was talking with a friend the other day about gas prices.  We agreed that when gas prices (or unemployment, or the economy generally) improve, that will tend to help any incumbent president’s chances of re-election—and that, by the same token, when they worsen that will tend to hurt his chances—regardless of whether they’re his fault or not.  The question, then, was whether it can fairly be said that the recent high gas prices are partly President Obama’s fault or not.

So I was interested to hear that the answer may be an emphatic Yes: 

On Liberals, Conservatives, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Knowledge

Are liberals smarter than conservatives?  It’s an interesting question, if you like, and you can find interesting studies and speculations on whether and why, but intelligence isn’t the same as wisdom.  A person gifted with higher than average cognitive ability can still be a fool.

Some liberals certainly think that liberals are both much smarter and much wiser than conservatives.  Arguably that belief is an intrinsic part of the ideology of the American Progressive movement.  A commenter on this blog has said, “. . . the American people are by and large an idiotic bunch. . . . And these are the people that are voting!”