Tolerance, Schmolerance

I will certainly have my Commie Pinko card revoked after I tell you that Bay Area liberals can be a smug bunch. If you pee on yourself in public, smell like a broke-down sweage plant, or shout down poor innocent tourists from Wichita while they're buying sourdough bread, then you have a welcome place in this city-- set up your cardboard house anywhere! But if you give off even a whiff of conservatism, an iota of the dirty smell of capitalism, you are as good as hanged in the court of public opinion.

Why do I care? I am a solid liberal, always have been, and I come from a family of Democrats. I worked for Bernie Ward, happily, for years. And I'm a woman, so my capacity for compassion is allegedly larger than most. (We'll get into sexist stereotypes in another blog.) So I ask you, again, why do I care?__Because I take great pride in my self-righteousness. When I lay the verbal smackdown on someone who is trying to tell me that gays are Satan's minions or abortion is the murder of little tiny people, I want to make sure I let them have enough rope to hang themselves before I go all berzerker on them. When you squelch an opposing view, or disregard someone as a raving lunatic just because he disagrees with you, you aren't setting yourself up for moral victory. You're defeating an opponent by sticking your fingers in your ears and going, "I can't hear you! La la la lalalala..." Listen to what they say. Take mental notes. Refute every point with a fact that you know (read: didn't make up) to be true. Don't generalize. And if there is no argument to be won, if the person is just too stupid to grasp the concept of shades of grey, then what the hell are you doing talking to them anyway? Find different people to socialize with.

Intolerance is intolerance, whether you like it or not. Bay Area liberals need to realize that we are not all alone in this world, and that no one actually listens to the radical sect of the Democratic party because they all sound like hyperventilating children. Same for the crazier Republicans (O'Reilly, Savage, anyone?) Get a grip, and own the fact that in order for us to be right, we have to be able to engender conversation that proves other people wrong. Don't cheapen my self-righteousness.