intellectual bullying

alan aker today writes:

...you have to live in rural, red state America to experience intellectual diversity.

We hear both sides of the story. On abortion, the environment, gay marriage, war, and taxes, we hear the liberal side from the national media, and we hear both sides in the local media and radio. Sure, we hear the liberal side twice, but at least we hear the conservative side once...

(one reason that)liberals never hear the other side is that they're such bullies. Intellectual bullies, that is. I'm sure Manhattan has conservatives, but they live in such an intolerant environment, they probably keep quiet.

Things like this are hard to quantify, but you can detect it in how liberals argue their political positions. Consider hate crimes laws. They criminalize thought. We can all agree that things like assault, murder, and theft should be illegal, but only an intellectual bully is interested in whether you had the correct thoughts about those you were murdering or assaulting.

Or consider sex education. Liberals oppose laws requiring abstinence education. These laws don't forbid schools from continuing on with the traditional "we know you're going to have sex, so here's a condom" philosophy, they merely require that schools also inform kids of the benefits of abstinence. Only intellectual bullies would feel so threatened by the idea of students hearing both points of view.

Another trademark of intellectual bullies is that they can't resist calling people names. They honestly think their opponents are evil or stupid. We're homophobes. Patriarchs. Greedy. Fundamentalist. Bigots. Gun-toters. White trash. Bible-thumpers. It's hard to listen to new ideas with these thoughts in your head.

the above quote is thanks to 17 yr old american lady, who commented rather eloquently with her own personal take:

I have a lot of gay male friends, and while a lot of them accept my conservatism (they call me "The least likely Republican"), some of their friends don't take it very well. They say that because I support President Bush means that I want them to rot in hell because they're gay.


Uh...right. Exactly.


It was really hard for me to support them in the election. I told them that when the amendment went up to ban all gay marriage, I told them that I would be on their side. I don't want them to legally get married, but a ban seems too permenant. If some crazie wants to start a religion and have them marry gays, okay, let it be legal for that religion (that's how I feel personally).


But some of them just couldn't see past what I believed. The men that I am closest to are the ones who were able to understand me and were open minded.


A few of my gay friends also don't support gay marriage themselves. They have to suffer the burden of being called a "self-loathing homosexual" just because they believe that the religious tradition of marriage is between a man and a woman.


I discuss homosexuals because they make up a large part of the population in these cities. Many of them think like crazy left wing liberals. Everyone who doesn't agree with gay marriage, they believe, is some incredible bigot that wouldn't know their left foot from their right foot.


If you don't agree with these liberals, you're automatically stupid. You have no idea what you're talking about. It's a wonder that you can get up in the morning.


And you look at liberals when they say that, and you just LAUGH. Funny, isn't it? Really ironic.


Anyway, the article is great, please read it.