Bipartisan Arrogance

They say that you're a radical leftist liberal when you're young, and end up turning into a wisened conservative as you grow older. Maybe this is just a sign that I'm on the cusp of such a transition, and in another ten years I may end up voting Conservative, driving an SUV from my brokerage firm on Bay Street to my generic house in Richmond Hill built on razed mixed-deciduous forest.

Lately I've grown more and more annoyed and disenchanted by the general attitude I've gotten from people on the "left". Reading the stories on places like NOW Magazine and AlterNet, it's become more and more clearer to me that many (note: that's many, not all) people who call themselves "liberal" or ally themselves with the "left" have this incredibly inflated self-righteous view of themselves and the causes that they champion, as if their cause is the One True Cause to believe in.

Sound a little familiar to you? Replace words and concepts like "gay rights" with "Christian morality" and you get the same thing on the "right", virtually a mirror image. Doesn't this strike anyone as being more than a little disturbing?

In general, you've got people on the left who, apparently, are shouting and screaming that for their cause (the just and good cause, naturally) to succeed, ALL aspects -- both good and bad -- of the other side have to DIE. And ditto of course, for the right. I've seen more and more in many places this general fundamentalist fervour. Which of course, leads to my personal beef: an apparent, well "persecution" (for lack of a better word, I suppose) of people belonging to religious traditions who do believe in liberal values, amongst people in the "leftist" movement itself. It's not really direct or explicit, but it's evident in the writing and thoughts of people who have this incredible, repugnant hatred of religion (and those who practice it) and justify it under the rubric of "being a liberal", as if that somehow justifies what you say and feel.

And this is what I have to say to those people: you're all a bunch of fucking idiots.

Believe it or not, you need people like the religious liberals. You need people like them to ground you in reality and ensure that people not belonging to either side see you as legitimate people for positive social change instead of tinfoil hat-wearing psychos shouting out slogans to "Smash the State". More importantly, you need people like them to open channels of dialogue to other people and to show them the meaning of what you fight for, and why they should support you.

But it seems like people like you just don't care, and would rather be caught up in your self-involved, self-righteous ivory tower. Pity you don't see the cracks in the foundation.