Fareed Zakaria: "Liberals think they're tolerant, but they're not."

wrath
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I can’t really follow this. I think “liberals” (in the USian sense of the word) generally really care about people’s problems. There can be a huge disconnect between a mostly urban highly-educated and well-connected elite and the people who they think they are helping that can mean they are implementing things that don’t help. Plus even if there was no disconnect, sometimes people just do things badly.

If you take an example like the ACA it was created to try to help people who were suffering because they lacked access to healthcare. Did it help those people? Certainly many, but it’s kind of a bad way to run healthcare so it caused some problems for others. I mean, you can debate whether it was good policy or not, but if you’re taking the position that an attempt to get more people healthcare was created out of a lack of caring then I find that hard to swallow.

What makes you feel like people with progressive policies don’t care?

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I don’t believe people who only wish to hurt others are seeking respect for their ideas and views. They’re asking for unquestioned societal acceptance of their hatred and that there be no consequences if they act on their hatred.

The person I replied to wants all the respect s/he refuses to extend to his/her perceived political enemy. Shouting at people hardly elides the desire to listen in an audience, and displays none of the respect being requested.

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Sorry about that. So we’re talking about the spectrum of ‘liberalness’ and intolerances that occur within that range. Yes, that certainly exists, and includes ‘extreme radicals’ (whatever that means) who, at times, have been used as talking points by certain conservatives to short-circuit discussion and fire up their own base; I think that part should inform those with a voice in Liberal camp to coordinate, plan, clearly articulate “what’s to come next”, and otherwise get their shit together.

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Now that the regime’s incompetence, corruption and compromised state is being revealed on an almost daily basis, the point is going to come when many conservatives who enable it can’t wish it away anymore. When they have no choice but to acknowledge this embarrassing disaster and assign blame, I guarantee you that they’ll pin it all on “out-of-touch liberal coastal elites” who didn’t listen to Real Americans™ in the Heartland, leaving the latter with “no choice” but to vote for this grifter demagogue.

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This right here is why I can respect right wing voters but not right wing politicians, for example. The voters are given a constrained choice, and then work within those constraints… poorly and against their best interests.

However I have no respect for those who impose those false constraints on the most vulnerable in our society.

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I think there is definitely truth to the idea that middle America (or whatever I’m supposed to call the non-coastal parts) had many concerns ignored by a democratic party that was more aligned with the politics of the coasts. But I don’t think the issue is with progressive voters not caring. The issue is with politics too infected by money to worry even about what even the supporters want.

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I understand your need to reach out to those people from your home state, but as someone who’s left a similarly conservative state (Kansas) I see no reason to share my views with them when they see me (being transgender and all) as subhuman. Until conservatives admit that my humanity isn’t contingent on their conception of the Creator, or the lack thereof, there can be no discussion about their “concerns” regarding me being trans. I know that’s harsh to say but it’s something I’ve learned when dealing with my own parents who still to this day think I’m delusional (I’ve even offered to have them talk to my therapist on my own dime so he can explain the situation better than I can). At some point, most folks are just going to give up any discussion on anything when the opposing side sees them as categorical Other. If there’s a way out of this mess then I don’t see it. Feel free to enlighten me on this matter.

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There is nothing more brain dead than the argument about “playing the racist/bigot card” the right uses when people correctly complain a given POV is bigoted. It is not a refutation that one is a bigot, it is just showing annoyance that it is being pointed out.

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And in related news…

So much for far-right claims to concern about the value of free speech on college campuses.

Full text:

Meanwhile, here in New York City, leading Palestinian-American organizer Linda Sarsour is facing a barrage of death threats ahead of her scheduled commencement speech at the City University of New York School of Public Health this Thursday. Sarsour was the co-organizer of the National Women’s March and the former head of the Arab American Association of New York. Last week, white supremacist Milo Yiannopoulos led a protest against Sarsour outside CUNY’s main office. CUNY’s chancellor says he will not cancel her speech.

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Gee, I think walking out is a somewhat better response than death threats.

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The irony of Milo leading a protest another speaker, when he’s a poster-boy for the right’s freeze-peach complaints about protests against rightwing speakers, is just…

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There are a bunch of things I’m intolerant of.

I’m intolerant of racism in any form. There’s no point listening to racists. Their position has no nuance, even though they may think there are all sorts of good reasons why racism is OK. Racism is not OK, period.

I’m intolerant of “pro-life” people. I will not listen to someone who wants abortion illegal for any and all reasons, for every woman. They have nothing to say that interests me or would sway me. I might argue with someone who is trying to convince me that abortion after x months should be illegal, but I wouldn’t agree with them.

I’m intolerant of creationists (I refuse to use their other deceptive name). There’s plenty of churches out there where they can preach that stuff. Maybe they’re just ignorant, which is too bad, but there are a lot of smart creationists out there who want it taught in schools, and who want everyone to believe it. I won’t listen to them because their views are scientifically impossible, and, frankly, laughable.

I’m not quite as intolerant of people who believe that anthropogenic global warming isn’t happening, unless they are politicians or businessmen. Politicians have the responsibility of listening to qualified scientists about science, and clearly a lot of them aren’t. Ordinary people who aren’t qualified may have been fooled by all the anti-global warming propaganda, so I would talk to them about it, in the hopes of convincing them. My brother, however, is an engineer but is a conservative, and I know there’s no point talking to him about it.

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“It’s not explicitly illegal for me to say this” is the weakest defense one can muster in support of their statements.

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One can care about the problems of others and still call them out on sexist, racist, homophobic BS. Holding someone to a standard of caring for others isn’t not caring about their problems. I mean, seriously now… students walking out on a public official, an ELECTED one, who has a long history of bringing homophobia - active hate for other human beings, seeking to make them no longer feel comfortable as Americans - into the public sphere is the perfectly correct political action to take. Why should we care how Pence feels about it, when he works so hard to make the world a less tolerable, meaner place to be.

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And what a tangled web that leads to!

The Sugar Mama of Anti-Muslim Hate - 2012-06-14

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I live in the deep South of the United States, Alabama to be exact. I recently finished “S-Town” (https://stownpodcast.org/), which is a podcast about Woodstock, Alabama, and its inhabitants, focusing in particular on a character worthy of Flannery O’Connor. This real person rails against all the same things we often rail against here about ills in the US, yet in an accent that forces us to examine our own prejudices.

Case in point:
“For a Northern, liberal NPR listener, hearing such things levelled against mostly conservative Southern whites, in a mellifluous spiel by a liberal Southern white man with a thick accent, is a mind-bender in itself—you feel implicated somehow, and voyeuristic.” (http://www.newyorker.com/culture/sarah-larson/s-town-investigates-the-human-mystery)

I’m a small, blue dot in a really red state, and I’ve personally experienced prejudice based on how I sound.

The type of liberal intolerance about which Zakaria is incensed is bogus. I offer one small example (one’s accent), but liberal intolerance does exist and it’s far more complicated than any of us would care to admit.

I’m proud of my intolerances as well. I don’t allow it in my home or in my life. When someone makes a statement that is racist/sexist/etc., I call them on it and consequences be damned. My son has a friend who is transgender and that certainly ain’t no easy road in Alabama.

The “banality of evil” is something against which those of us who live in really red states live fight daily. We work with these people, we have these people as neighbors. We know them as fully realized human beings with simultaneously horrible beliefs and vast kindnesses. When my neighbor shows up on my doorstep with a casserole after my husband had surgery, a neighbor who probably voted for Trump, am I supposed to throw that concoction of cream of mushroom and chicken in her face? I don’t know.

I choose to live here because a) it’s my home; and, b) I can make a difference by being here.

I guess I would say don’t abandon us that are trying to live here and fight the good fight.

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I feel like I can relate, somewhat. The Westchester NY/Fairfield CT area is like a big red dot in a blue area. It’s certainly not my home, but I have agreed to live here for a few years for complicated family reasons. I had never encountered so much bigotry and regressive views in all my other years in the NE/NY region. It was startling to me and I still struggle with it.

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What is critical for any political agenda or even personal belief system is to see these people as fully realized human beings, both the horrible and the good. Very few of us are one or the other, nor do we ever see ourselves as anything but “good.” Being reductionist never works. As crazy as it may seem to you and me, there are reasons they hold the beliefs they do. Understanding why is paramount.

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At first, I asked myself why anyone would even bother to react to such a weakly presented case. Then I scrolled through this thread.

Now I still wonder why this is causing 80+ comments.

Does the author of the piece have a certain standing? Is this going to be influential?
I don’t get it.

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Yes. He’s pretty well known. Has his own show on CNN. Writes for the WaPo, and used to be a staff writer for Newsweek.

It already has been.

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