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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (912012)	1/3/2016 6:50:03 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575214

What Explains the Vicious Left? When politics becomes a religion, nonbelievers must be punished. Jan 11, 2016 \| By David Gelernter The Weekly Standard Civil discourse, Occupy Wall Street-style, October 11, 2011 (Credit: newscom) The asymmetry of modern politics is clear to every conservative; painfully clear to several Yale undergraduates who asked me about it recently. Leftists, they pointed out, are hostile, nasty, and seem to have no concept of a civil conversation. Why? Because they are winning? Losing? Are natural-born bullies? And how can this dangerous mood be changed? It’s not just a question of civility versus rudeness—which of course is no small thing in itself. The deeper problem is that the left seems to have lost its taste for democracy. Naturally there are exceptions to the modern trend, benign leftists and nasty rightists. (Trump is a special case: see below.) The trend itself is partly explained by the Obama sneer; presidents have enormous influence. FDR's bouncy, feisty smile, Reagan's geniality, Clinton's one-of-the-boys grin, W's good-natured earnestness are part of history; and Obama's real "legacy" (aside from worldwide crisis) is that bitter sneer. His rudeness to political opponents has made a rotten political climate much worse. But the left's growing reputation for belligerent intolerance transcends Obama. You see characteristic leftist arrogance among global warmers, who show their respect for their opponents by refusing to listen to them and implying that they are crackpots. On campus, leftists have spit at conservatives, screamed obscenities at moderate liberals, yammered on about phony "rape crises" while doing everything they could think of to promote universal debauchery, rigged local votes to silence opponents of the Kill Israel (aka "BDS") movement. The list goes on, the arrogance is staggering, the asymmetry all too obvious. Conservatives, bursting with facts and ideas (and anger and dismay), are eager to have it out with liberals and maybe even convince a few. Liberals are eager to make assertions and strike moral poses, but not to respond to rational argument or speak to the facts. Where does the asymmetry come from? American conservatives tend to be Christians or Jews. Liberals tend to be atheists or agnostics. (Yes, there are exceptions—to nearly everything, always; but that doesn't mean we can stop thinking.) Almost all human beings need religion, as subway-riders need overhead grab bars. The religious impulse strikes conservatives and liberals alike. But conservatives usually practice the religion of their parents and ancestors; liberals have mostly shed their Judaism or Christianity, and politics fills the obvious spiritual gap. You might make football, rock music, or hard science your chosen faith. Some people do. But politics, with its underlying principles and striking public ceremonies, is the obvious religion substitute. Hence the gross asymmetry of modern politics. For most conservatives, politics is just politics. For most liberals, politics is their faith, in default of any other; it is the basis of their moral life. Traditional religion used to be the iron grate that kept worldly beliefs from falling into the flames and turning into red-hot religious convictions in their own right. Among most conservatives it still is http://www.weeklystandard.com/what-explains-the-vicious-left/article/2000390