Have liberals become too tolerant?

THIS is a spooky time for my generation. Many of us, I think, are looking around at the dreadful scenario — our country involved in a needless, immoral war of aggression, hated by the rest of the world — and saying to ourselves, “Haven’t we been here before? Didn’t we solve this problem 30 years ago?”
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I look back now and gulp at some of the nonsense I swallowed back then. Like many of my fellow former lefties, I’ve devoted much of the rest of my life to fine-tuning my political sensibilities, to developing what I like to think is a more mature, more nuanced, more tolerant outlook. The radicals of the ’60s have concentrated on growing up, honing our understanding, widening our tolerance — not to mention making a living and raising our children. America really was going to be OK, we thought. We turned into liberals. And we turned inward.
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You see, this is one thing radicals and right-wingers have in common: They despise liberals.
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I’m beginning to believe I’ve gone too far with all this peace, love and tolerance for the rich, selfish, bigoted, manipulative, hypocritical, narrow people who are currently trying to reshape our country. These are dangerous people. They are making your life and mine much more insecure at just about every level.
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http://wvgazette.com/section/Columns/2004052712

I haven't seen anybody quote Chairman Mao for a while ...

should we survive, it isn't likely that anyone will ever be smeared as a "premature anti-fascist" again. If there's one thing we've learned, it is that you have to quarantine epidemics like this before they spread, and you have to do it quickly.

We were so complacent we didn't think one group could take over all 3 branches of government and eliminate our system of checks and balances.

Just because we interfered in elections elsewhere, we didn't think it could happen here.

We didn't think that anyone sworn to uphold and defend a Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech would permit big corporations to eliminate almost all liberal voices from the media.

And we made Pastor Niehmoller's mistake of thinking that prison abuses and torture were happening to somebody else, not to us, so all we had to do was continue to contribute to Amnesty International.

Yes, we became too tolerant, and it still isn't a sure thing if we'll survive. We'll certainly never think of ourselves as the land of the free and the home of the brave again, because we have more prisoners than any country on earth, and we cravenly let an unelected president lead us into an unjustified war. Never mind that this police state squashed us like bugs whenever we tried to protest, we have been more humiliated in the eyes of the world than any Iraqi prisoner, and we should have died before permitting such disgrace.

senior

taking all three branches of government, I confess that I did expect the Liberals to put up a better fight. I stepped in about 1998 when it seemed the Democrats got all Lieberman mushy. Could never understand how you all allowed the Republicans to kick your man around the way they did. Surely the Democratic party could have voiced their strong disagreement of Clinton's behavior, without abandoning him completely.

But then, I think that maybe Democrats, like Lieberman, secretly favored Republican policies which have now come crashing down on our heads.

Tolerant people have been branded "liberal" even when they would never think of themselves as such because they accepted that as an epithet via the same intolerant people running roughshod over them.

That includes Conservative Republicans as well unless their bona fides call for other epithets. Some of these more tolerant people still wouldn't be caught dead being "liberal".

As for lefty radicals, some of the most ineffectual acid tongues in the country, they have little in common in this regard with the right.

We are not talking about tolerance but blind mushiness, the lukewarm, the self-willed naive cognitive dissonance middle serviced by a co-opted media which dominates the minds and forums of mainstream thought. Despite that and despite a kneejerk antipathy to young liberal Crusaders, most people would follow the smooth path of least resistance and normalcy- which necessitates tolerance and equal rights.

On one hand, faith in human nature as decent, when at peace and fairly non-competitive. On the other hand, stimulus by extremists leading to manipulation that abuses and misleads and speeds up the inertia bound commons. Take less credit in the Manichean struggle(the Elect, the Elite are self-deceiving ruthless notions of indefensible superiority)and work to empower the masses, to free their minds, and be prepared to be constantly frustrated, disappointed and impatient.

Knowing what is best for humanity won't save it, nor will enslaving it, nor will apathetic entropy. Nor do people want to fight certain "respectable" people or institutions but will instinctively fight rebels, or vice versa under other conditions. Nor will they face the fact that human nature and especially types of humans(cutting across race, creed, culture and gender) and behaviors are THE main problem of life and instead attack some straw dog or scapegoat. Humans in denial live like animals satisfying temporary wants, avoiding stress, no thought to the future or big picture.

at that time. They rolled over like a little puppy and piddled on the floor for the rethugs, which really made me ill.

I'm glad to see the dems standing up and asking the tough questions... but I really think the DLC and those dems who pander to republicans in the hopes of getting scraps from the table *cough* Miller *cough* should be shown the door, because they do nothing but hurt the party.