As a society we generally condemn racial prejudice and occasionally condemn religious prejudice. Liberals, like myself, are quite quick to condemn prejudice based on sexual orientation. Why do so many in any society insist upon the stereotyping of people who are perceived as different?
Often such prejudice is just plain laughable. Or it's just plain stupid. It's generally always based on ideas or assumptions that is simply wrong. Blacks are not lazy. Hispanics are not thieves. Muslims are not terrorists. Gays can be good parents.
I'd like to think we all recognize prejudice.
But, here in the blogosphere I'm becoming increasingly concerned about BLIND and totally misguided prejudice base solely on political and/or economic beliefs. The name calling and the blanket condemnations are seriously out of control. Just read the comments sections of almost any political blog, left or right. Hate is being spewed in almost laughable proportions. Except it's just not funny.I've got news for you. Conservatives DO NOT HATE the environment. LIBERALS DO NOT HATE America. Conservatives DO NOT HATE minorities. Liberals DO NOT HATE the military.
If you think I'm wrong you are just not getting out enough. You are not reading the blogs of those who differ from you politically and making a genuine effort to communicate (not lecture or call names).
I have a list of 26 blogs I try to read at least once weekly. Three are decidedly non political. Eight concentrate on International events or regional issues (Darfur, Iraq, Iran, Burma, etc). The remaining fifteen are political.
Of those 15, eight (8) are liberal and range form the very large (Daily Kos and Huffington) to the small and thoughtful (The Vigil and Liberal Values).
One is a rather middle of the road blog. That leaves six (6) that are conservative, again from the large (Pajamas Media and Little Green Footballs) to the very small (the unbelievably prolific Freedom Eden, I swear the woman writes 24 hours a day).
The comments attached to these blogs are nearly identical. I mean scarily word for word identical. Every damned day. Just remove the key words "liberals," "conservatives," "democrats, or "republicans" and the comments can simply be picked up and moved from the blogs on the left over to the blogs on the right. All spew blind and blanket prejudice. All are laced with vitriolic hatred. Many actually wish death upon their political opposites.
Michelle Malkin, who I always read and frequently quote in this blog, has pointed out the incredibly hypocrisy of and obvious prejudice of liberal economist Robert Reich. Her article today, The left-wing bullies in Robert Reich’s backyard, is really worth a read.
But even after Malkin gets it so spot-on right, a few of her own readers quickly revert to the same exact name calling and hate speech and class prejudice she has just condemned
3 comments:
Because of your eclectic reading habits, your words are often worth reading and re-reading, Wiz. I'll be back later to follow the link on Reich and perhaps to comment further.
Thanks for the link to Liberal Values. The underlying message of Malkin's post is that the real problem is extremists, whether left or right. On second thought, even extremists might not be the right word as there are certainly people who hold extreme views who do not resort to that type of tactic.
There is also a considerable degree of truth to your statement that the comments to all the blogs are the same and "All spew blind and blanket prejudice. All are laced with vitriolic hatred. Many actually wish death upon their political opposites."
This is technically less true of the comments section of Liberal Values--but only because I've started weeding out the comments which are primarily expressions of hatred without any additional substance. Unfortunately such comments represent a very high percentage of the comments left, and to allow many through would give the blog a tone which I do not want it to have. This applies to comments from both left and right. There is something about the anonymity of the internet which brings out the worst in people, or perhaps something about the internet which brings out some of the worst people--along with others who do not share these faults.
Wizard, I naturally thought of you as soon as I saw this column in my local LA Times.
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