Here here, JohnM. Standing cyber ovation from me. And you described a couple of our regular site pests to a tee!

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Wordsmith, you raise interesting questions. I have wondered about this sort of thing myself. Certainly, the posts show that there are many facets to the answer(s). Here are a few more musings on possible explanations.

Much of what we are seeing today, I believe, had its roots in the 60’s (I was born in ’48, so I am part of that wave of baby boomers). A major part of this dynamic is the Liberal leanings of academia and its impact on news, information flow and the nature of our political debates.

I think that many Liberals of the 60’s and subsequent decades went into academia. In some ways this is natural. Liberals want a safe world. They want it to be a world where you may not be able to rise very high, but you are never going to fall very far either. Academia is a microcosm of that safe world. A tenured professor will probably seldom become a multi-millionaire. On the other hand, the salary is comfortable, benefits are good, after a point you don’t work too hard (that is what graduate assistants are for), and there is a certain prestige (students have to sit enthralled with your lectures) – so, all in all, not a bad life. For entrepreneurial personalities, the confines of the academic world are too narrow for their ambitions. For Liberals, it is a comfortable universe. If only the world at large could be like it.

Liberals are utopians. They want the world not only to be safe but to be perfect, at least according to their values: no war, no suffering, no exploitation: perfect harmony among peoples, cultures and religions. It is a binary view. There is little room for discussion. Either you are against war or you are a warmonger that thirsts for the blood of the innocent. Either you support global warming, or you are callously driving the planet and all life on it to extinction. Either you favor abortion unconditionally, or you are promoting female servitude in all of its forms. With these attitudes as the starting point, there is not a lot to discuss. With these attitudes as the starting point, if you disagree you are automatically a monster and need to be shouted down, not engaged in discussion. And the persons doing the shouting have the right (in their views) to do this because they care about people and you don’t. It is the Rosie O’Donnell school of political debate.

The organizational vehicles for Liberals to create this perfect world are the university system, the media, government programs, judicial activism, international organizations, international tribunals, etc. The fact that Liberals have such influence in the university system means that this is the world view that many young, impressionable people will receive and act on. And, that these ideas will flow through, especially into careers in the media or entertainment industry.

And, because the mainstream news media are on board with this Liberal leaning, having been formed by these very same ideas, the Liberal views seldom get publicly challenged in those established channels we turn to for news. Or, if they are challenged, the challenge is presented as some aberrant menace. I think that Fox News leans to the Right, but, is that so bad when most of the other major news outlets lean to the Left? Doesn’t that provide some balance?

Finally, because the MSM will repeat the same position over and over, it becomes the conventional wisdom. It is beyond question. It has become, in fact, the safe message that can be screamed from the rooftops (or car bumpers) and only challenged at one’s peril.

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Hubby stopped in Iowa to fill up, a car with similar graffiti was in the next row of pumps. All he did was just gaze at the car as he filled our car and a woman started swearing at him for looking at her car. What in the world was her point in even pasting that garbage on the car if she didn’t want someone to read it? Hopefully, she was stable enough to drive home without running over any children or neighborhood pets.

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What? None of our regular libs weighing in on this? Aren’t they always the ones that whine about not having a voice?? LOL

Did 17 years in California. I didn’t “hide” my conservatism, but I also don’t *didn’t* flaunt it. If someone brought up politics, I discussed it without shying away. If it broke up a friendship, then it wasn’t a friendship worth having to begin with.

Now I’m in Oregon, and it’s no different than California. My family is also split, with basically my parents and I being on the one side (despite my mom as a registered DNC), and the rest on the other. Except for one in-law my niece married. I was happy to get another body and voice in there…

But as an aside… anyone notice that the progressive/lib stickers are attached to a very AGW unfriendly vehicle?? :0)

Also, Leah, there is no dearth of “affluent neighborhoods” in Southern Cal… or northern either. But Bookworm’s got it tougher. Marin County is a progressive bastion all to itself… and they’re far more vicious up there than in Southern Cal.

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“Someone needs to get a life.”…

I’ve never understood this type of persistent, public profusion of punditry. Perhaps it bestows some sort of vicarious validation for such polemics.

How pathetically shallow….

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Silicon Valley has a similar problem. One might well say they would not live in a neighborhood that condemned their politics – and you probably wouldn’t move to a neighborhood like that either, but what about The Pod People?
What if you lived somewhere that was at one time “normal,” with a balance of opinions and ideas, but then it changed almost overnight when the Pod People Kool-Aid drinkers (and Manufacturers!) moved in – and they went to vote your taxes UP.
What if suddenly an influx of young know-nothings with a fistful of money showed up? They’re Ultra-Liberal, Super Eco-Friendly, Hip-To-Be-Green, and working at “Spoogle” in the endless campus-lifestyle – with stock-options out the wazoo. They moved to your town from Spacecamp Oregon, and Treehugger Washington, from Taxville Massachusetts and Gununfriendly Chicago. They never heard of “location, location, location” and started buying up even the crappy shanty-dwellings out from underneath the Mexican illegals – and for ungodly sums – just to own some real-estate — and you were still just squeaking by paying the mortgage.
They grew up Liberal and affluent, skiing in Colorado in the winter and surfing on Kauai in the summer. They come from wealthy Liberal suburbs to begin with – and now they’re even moreso. They feel the Guilt their Liberal Parents taught them and intend to pass it along to their own children just as soon as they have some – most will vote for Obama because it makes them feel good about themselves. They have a lot of New Money, and think that it is because they’re *smart* – not that they’re taken advantage of, or that they were just in the right place at the right time – they attribute their success to themselves and their own vast intellect. At age 24.
And now they live all around you…and you “get” to shop at Whole Foods… It’s Demographics.
I’ll move when I can afford to sell without taking the massive tax-hit, but this is not the place I grew-up, not since the Dot-Com boom brought all the Ecoweenies and Social-Justicers out from under some eastern rock, to descend upon here like a blanket of locusts.

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We live in a critical time in history. We teeter between Freedom, the bondage of Liberalism and Socialism and oppression of Radical Islam. History will be made by what we now do. History is made by the bold, those who are willing to take risks. If the Founding fathers were willing to risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for my right to be free, then what kind of man would I be to not be willing to risk the same to KEEP our country free from those who would enslave it to the corrupt ideology of Liberalism?

A Car can be repainted, broken Windows can be repaired, and injuries heal. But Freedom, once lost, cannot be easily reclaimed. Conservatives need to be bold. To speak boldly, and to act with courage. The time for hiding who we are and what we believe is over. Speak now. act now, and vote in November. We will reclaim America and hold back the night.

God Bless America.

Damn well said! Here, here!

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Excellent post and replies! I learned most of this in the last big election when Moorebots started broadbrushing all conservatives as baby killers and the like. If you want to really make a flaming lib angry, point out that in America you don’t have to proclaim your affiliation to the masses! Of course, the NYFB approach automatically labels you as “against me”, as it were, to the left masses, but so what? I think what bothers me most is the loathing and contempt I see in the left’s faces when you don’t parrot their ideals. If you don’t agree with them, you are apparently sub-human and not worthy of having a discussion with. Global warming was just a barometer for the intolerance of the left. How many that berated you for your skepticism of the warming predictions have retracted, or apologized for their contempt? You can’t argue with someone immersed in blind faith.

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I live in Mini-Me Chicago. Wehavenot had a eleced Republican here since I was born. The Democrat Machine runs everything aloing with the Unions.

And the sad thing is, I have lost friends because of my politics. I get very empassioned when I talk politics. I also look at more than our local News Rag for information. I try and not talk politicswith friends and also some family memebrs. My immediate family is conservative, but I have aunts and uncles that are liberals. it is always nteresting when they get to together. There are 3 conserative vs. 3 liberals.

I tend to agree with Wearyman on this also. Conservative are more often more calm and think inward and are not out there admitting to the world who they are, such as CodePink and the rest of their ilk.

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As a handyman in the San Francisco bay area, I never discuss politics with my clients, I just can’t afford that risk. My wife had a friend over who admitted that she was aware of Obama’s racist background, and abject lack of experience, but “Oh, I could never vote for a republican!” So yes, I understand exactly what you’re saying here.

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