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Friday, February 04, 2005

Letter from a liberal visitor

I received the following as an email from someone who read my blog yesterday:

"Well, for the most part your blog seems pretty sane. I kind of got lost after clicking on a link from slate.com and ended up in, horror of horrors, conservative blog-apalooza. Pretty wild territory for a pro-choice, female Kerry voter. It's been an amusing afternoon for several reasons, and I will definitely admit that it's been informative. I was particularly interested when I saw your link to an article about liberal intolerance masked as protest. I find that to be a true statement all too often ( i.e. GLAAD protesting Eminem. Just don't buy the record, people! ). Then I read it, and as informative and amusing I find most of the sites I've visited to be, this one finally made me angry."

"I feel a bit guilty for directing the forthcoming rebuttal in your direction, but you did give the article a ringing endorsement and I couldn't find a "respond to this article" hyperlink. It was probably right in front of my face, negating everything I'm about to say, but I'll take my chances. I suppose my biggest beef was with the sentiment that left=environmental extremism. Maybe you disagree and perhaps feel I'm being unfair, but in one opening paragraph line it was "the left does not accept the proposition that other people have just as many rights as they do" and in the next "ask any environmental extremist...". To me that's like writing an article asserting that "the right feels it has the authority to decide what's best for everyone based on its own religiosity" and supporting my point of view by adding "ask any abortion-doctor murderer...". It was nauseating to the point of an eye-roll and from reading as much as I have today, I think most conservatives know it. (By the way, does giving a damn about the wetlands make someone an extremist? Man, I better re-evaluate.)"

"My second nerve-tweak came when "protest" all of a sudden was the same thing as "riot" and referred to as tantamount to barbarianism. Let's have that conversation about extremism, shall we? That stuff is why it blows me away to hear liberals called anti-patriotic. Protest is annoying sometimes, necessary sometimes, fun sometimes, and scary sometimes, but a privilege for Americans ALL the time. To wear a black t-shirt and stand with your back to the President while holding a sign that says "liar" is hardly a riot and the prerogative of that individual. When we start issuing warnings about how the "barbarians" always take over (didn't we just lose the big one?) and relate that to protest, we get a little too close to creating fear for fear's sake, not for any imminently threatening reason."

"All that said, there are always those who get out of hand and riot. Some people just like to riot, and the price they pay is legal action. That's how we're wired. I think it shakes out pretty fairly. As far as intolerance being cloaked as protest, I agree. It's the same as a KKK march. It might be hate speech, but it's free speech and I personally wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks for reading, if you got this far; maybe you think I misunderstood or am just plain ridiculous, but I figured anyone who loves The Royal Tenenbaums has got to be open to alternative points of view. And should see Drowning Mona as soon as possible."



Here is my response.