Radical liberals and the rights of others

Before I say the first word about politics, I need to be clear that I’m neither a registered Democrat or Republican; I am a independent voter who holds both political parties in pretty much equal disdain. They don’t even bother trying to represent me in Washington.

I’d love to be able to think of myself as a liberal — it sounds wonderful, at least in principle. Some of the synonyms for the word ‘liberal’ are generous, abundant, copious, and plentiful.

And of course, the antonyms for liberal include intolerant, stingy, narrow-minded, mean, and greedy.

Really…who wants to be thought of as mean, or intolerant? I certainly don’t.

But the problem with self-identifying as a liberal is that the political ideology and the dictionary definition of the word appear to have very little in common with each other.

Now people who know me personally know that I’m not really a confrontational sort of person, but neither am I the “go along to get along” sort of person, either. I’m about ten times more likely to initiate a conversation about the upcoming football season for the Georgia Bulldogs than politics or religion, but I’m also not shy about expressing my opinions or correcting the record whenever it seems necessary. I have this very annoying tendency of stubbornly refusing to concede that I could be wrong about something in lieu of better evidence. I’m also very unlikely to simply take your word for anything if the argument from authority has been invoked.

Naturally, being radically liberal is a political orientation, not a religious one. It has been my experience that the behavior of a typical liberal will literally become the antithesis of the dictionary definition, more often than not. Granted, my interactions have most often been with a particular subset of liberals, specifically atheists. Not every atheist is a liberal, nor every liberal an atheist. On the other hand, I could probably count the number of conservative atheists I’ve encountered on one hand, without having to use most of those fingers. Conservatives who are atheists seem to be few and far between, or they must have better things to do than attack religious beliefs, and people who identify as theists.

Many of my friends (and family members) may refer to themselves as liberals, but their behavior is more like that of a moderate, “normal” person. In fact, several members of my personal church are loyal Democrat Party voters, at least according to their bumper stickers. The difference between these friends and family members and a truly radical liberal are obvious — the latter are vicious, and love to hate their perceived enemies.

For the most part, liberals don’t want to be stigmatized by their ideological stereotype — many prefer using the term progressive to calling themselves liberal, in an effort to create the illusion that they are forward-thinking, and not reactionary, which is what the majority of liberals actually are.

In reality, radical liberals tend to be very intolerant reactionaries frankly incapable of critical thinking. Obviously they fear the caricature image of liberals as hysterical, wild-eyed ranting lunatics — which many of them happen to be.

For example, a radical liberal will demand that Christians not only tolerate gay marriage, but they must also prepare the cake for the ceremony. If the Christian business owner refuses to make the cake, they will be forced out of business. Then in order to justify their draconian punishment of Christian businesses, liberal judges and politicians usually make a false comparison between exercising the freedom of religion and Jim Crow laws. However, politely refusing to make a cake is not discriminating against the color of a person’s skin, but rather a personal and business decision that reflects the content of a person’s character.

The Christian business owner isn’t actively protesting against gay marriage, or preventing the gay couple from getting married. They are simply asking the customer to find another bakery that would be more comfortable baking a wedding cake for a gay couple. But the people demanding tolerance won’t put up with that — nothing less than total submission is acceptable.

Fortunately, my friends who are gay tend to be conservative and they know my heart. I don’t feel the need to preemptively apologize or qualify my remarks so they know these comments don’t apply to them. My friends also know the radical Islamic terrorist wants to commit mass murder in gay bars, while the typical Christian wants to pray for the victims, and to donate blood and money to help.

Yes, there are a few jerks in every crowd, but some crowds are full of jerks. With the gay marriage battle apparently won, radical liberals have turned their attention to transgender bathrooms. They quickly label anyone who express concerns as homophobic, transphobic, etc. , as backward and hateful people.  Granting equal treatment and “freedom of choice” to identify as something other than one’s natural biological sex trumps any concerns other citizens may have about sexual predators exploiting this new opportunity to physically abuse innocent women and children. An overdeveloped desire for compassion leads to the death of common sense.

It may seem like I’m just generalizing all liberals as radicals and classifying certain types of behavior as such, but I have both family and friends who think of themselves as liberals. However, they tend to act more like moderates, at least around me. No one whom I know personally has dared attempt the “in-your-face” tactics of radical liberalism on me.

This morning a friend of mine posted an open letter on the internet that among other astute observations, included these words:

Negative campaigns, the demonizing of people with different opinions, discounting the legitimacy of their views, all works. Because *you* let it. While you are calling the “other” stupid, ignorant, etc., keep in mind that is exactly the same rhetoric the “other” is using on you. If you discount the legitimacy of their views, you don’t have to listen. But people generally have reasons for holding the views they do. If you don’t take time to understand them, and alienate them with nasty rhetoric, you’ll never even try. Which is what your “leaders” want – because if you apply the same standards of reason to them as you do to the “other”, you’ll find neither holds up too well.

I wish I could take credit for writing those words. I don’t claim to know all the answers to difficult questions, and I’m not suggesting that I’m even smart enough to have asked all of the right questions.

Now I know that I am not stupid. More importantly, I don’t appreciate being treated as if I’m stupid. It tends to bring out the worst in me, especially if the attack was unprovoked. I’m not claiming to be the smartest person on the planet — I’m not even claiming to be as smart as my wife, or as smart as my friend whose thoughts I pilfered without permission (which is why I haven’t given him credit by name.)

But neither are most, if not all of my critics.  Personally speaking, I’ve found that it’s inherently risky to assume that the other person involved in a discussion is stupid before listening to what they have to say. It’s also very rude to pre judge. But that won’t stop some people.

It’s certainly not fair to say that the lawyers with the ACLU who blamed Christians after a Muslim man claiming allegiance to multiple terrorist organizations murdered 50 people in a gay nightclub during the month of Ramadan are stupid, but political correctness and personal prejudices compelled them to make a very stupid claim. When atheist Sam Harris went on the Bill Maher show and said, “Liberals have really failed on the topic of theocracy. They’ll criticize white theocracy. They’ll criticize Christians. They’ll still get agitated over the abortion clinic bombing that happened in 1984. But when you want to talk about the treatment of women and homosexuals and free thinkers and public intellectuals in the Muslim world, I would argue that liberals have failed us,” Ben Affleck blew a gasket and incorrectly labeled Harris a racist, when he’s not being a bigot, either. He’s simply stating a fact — radical Islamic terrorists have been responsible for the majority of the recent mass shootings in the U.S. No one is saying that all Muslims are future mass murderers, but almost all of the recent mass murderers around the world have been inspired by radical Islamic ideology.

Once upon a time, as I was preparing to debate a rather prominent atheist, he recommended that I read something like Religion for Dummies (I can’t remember the actual title.) 

I didn’t get mad at my debate opponent, but I did believe that I was supposed to be offended or insulted, albeit in a joking, sort of a light-hearted way.

Similarly, when my debate opponent promised a friend of his that I’d agreed to pay a $10,000 fee for a professional videotaped record of the event, I didn’t get upset because I took it for the joke it surely was — I even replied that I would honor my opponent’s commitment of my funds, as long as payee wouldn’t be upset that Milton Bradley issued the currency.

I appreciated the fact my opponent wanted to inspire me to prepare, and flattered that I was considered a worthy opponent.

But rather than reading Religion for Dummies or whatever it was that my opponent for the big debate suggested, I had a much better idea…I watched videos of his previous debates, and took copious notes of his past arguments in favor of atheism.

Preparation gave me plenty of confidence. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t embarrass myself and things worked out okay…but standing up in front of an audience to argue with someone isn’t my idea of a great time. I prefer to express important ideas in writing — I don’t know how to edit or proofread the words before they come from my mouth. It’s much more difficult to express hateful sentiments in writing, unless you don’t think about what you write before publishing. It’s sort of my job to think about content and the messages I want to convey through my writing, even if it’s something I’m giving to readers for free, through my blog. Why should you be tempted to buy one of my books if I can’t even communicate concise ideas somewhat effectively in two or three thousand words?

Rather than trying to explain what I consider to be the differences between a radical liberal and a normal person, let me give you a couple of examples as an illustration:

Recently I offered a radical liberal (an atheist, in this case) a free electronic copy of my book, Counterargument for God, so that he could faster come up to speed on the evidence I would offer to support the points I planned to make.

Now ordinarily when I personally receive a gift from someone, I’m not normally prone to irrational outbursts of uncontrolled anger directed at the giver, even if the gift is something I didn’t really want or need. A polite, even if insincere “thank you” is usually in order.

Rather than reading my book and then expressing his opinion, within a matter of minutes this person launched into attack mode, beginning with this:

I’m trying to say that rational belief is a degree of belief that maps to the degree of the relevant evidence. No exceptions. Do you agree? If you don’t, your epistemology is rotten at its core. And that will pollute everything you say or write. You must disagree since the Bible disagrees. Read the book of John. Read it in Greek. The Bible itself is rotten at its core.

Interestingly enough, I had not even mentioned the Bible, nor made any claims of having superior knowledge of the Bible. Because I wouldn’t. The Bible isn’t even mentioned in the first 200 pages of my book, which are entirely focused on the available scientific evidence to support what I have coined my Big Picture argument. The Bible is only referenced in the latter section of the book that presents a brief defense of my Christian faith, when I took and then graded Dan Barker’s open Bible test.

This individual had immediately tried to characterize my beliefs based on his own interpretation of a theistic worldview, without bothering to learn what my beliefs are — so desperate to pass judgment on my epistemic approach to acquiring knowledge as “rotten at its core” that he neglected to learn what my approach is. He simply assumed that he knew.

At some point, I managed to explain that I don’t read Greek, and received this barrage:

I read the Greek New Testament 11 times in Greek. I also have a degree in philosophy. Your epistemology is clearly flawed. Yeah, you’re just another Christian asshole. You’re ignorant, and you’re arrogant. John you’re an idiot. Face it. Your (SIC) pretender who does not know the Bible as well as I do, and you know epistemology far less. John is best (SIC) if you just care less and stop talking about things you know nothing about. What a shameful show for Jesus. If you know little about the Bible, stop defending it. For a while there, I had hoped you had something of substance. How disappointing.

Wow! Just imagine what might have been accomplished if I had actually put a little effort into annoying this person. Though I won’t mention his name, I will add that this person claims to be an academic and a college professor with this caveat — people can claim to be anything they want on the internet, though I usually try to give them the benefit of my doubt.

On the other hand, one of my other critics has claimed to be an astronaut for NASA, a lawyer, professor at Oxford and a published author, so the benefit of my doubt must have some limits.

I find myself amazed to witness the venom, and the degree of vitriol that I can inspire from someone I’ve never even met, with no real effort on my part. It’s a real shame that I get no sense of satisfaction from my success at driving people into apoplectic rage. And I loathe arguing with people about politics.

The reason I don’t like radical liberals is because they believe the opinions and rights of others aren’t important. Radical liberals are some of the most intolerant people on Earth.