Here We Go Again

This is the last time I am going to talk about this. Promise.

Yesterday Bull Moose, following David Beinart, argued that Democrats are intolerant. That's right, you heard me. He distinguishes the way that Republicans have reached out to ethnic minorities over the last few years, while the Democrats have failed to do so with religiously inclined or military voters. Along similar lines, Beinart thinks that liberals are being, well, illiberal - just look at how they treated Bob Casey in 1992! Apparently liberals hold the evangelicals in contempt, and are fighting back for room for their way of life in America. Wow, I had no idea Christians in this country were so persecuted. How did that happen? How long will we have to wait for an evangelical to be elected President! Ah, the humanity!

My God this is just ridiculous. Why is it so hard for these "centrists" to understand that liberals don't have any problem with people of faith practicing that faith any way they please. We could care less if someone wants to live a sort of life we might not choose. You want to go to church 3 times a week, great! Have fun! Let a thousand flowers bloom! But there is a big difference between allowing a group space to practice their preferred lifestyle and foisting your value system of the rest of us!

The "issues" that drive the religious right are 1) prayer in schools, 2) displays of christianity in public places, 3) evolution, 4) gays, 5) the role of women, 6) abortion. Those issues have very little to do with defending your way of life and a great deal to do with imposing your "good life" on everyone else. The problem with cultural traditionalism is that it is other-regarding, and hence illiberal. What makes liberals mad is not that traditionalists believe what they do (many of us believe the same things), it is that some traditionalists are only happy when everyone else believes the same way they do. Because of course, anyone who doesn't recognize the truth of their claims is either evil, willful, or whatever. Arguing that that there is room for many ways of life is a repudiation of their divinely granted insights. They really don't accept the possibility that there is any other acceptable way to live. Now who's being intolerant?

Really, Bull Moose should know better. The claims of the religious right to cultural persecution are little more than Orwellian doublespeak. What he have is a group avoiding charges of intolerance by shifting this accusation on its opponents. And some on the left have actually accepted this specious argument! Hey man, you have a hook in your mouth!