My mother (see Liberal with a Twist posting) said the biggest difference between the conservative talk shows she once listened to and the liberal talk shows she now listens to all the time is the language. I learned how to cuss from my mother, so it's not like she's a total prude. She said that she often hears expressions that make her blush--and that's saying something.
I'm struck by the number of comments posted on Joe, My, God (my favorite blog) that include the F word. These are not nasty comments from dissenters. For the most part they tend to agree with JMGs positions. I like to think we liberals are more educated than our conservative counterparts--isn't that what makes us liberal? As such we should have no problem finding adjectives that convey outrage without offending. But frequent use of the F-word suggests that may not be the case.
I know Liberals don't own the F word. We have had a local controversy around a conservative bumper sticker: F*ck Obama. There have been a couple of letters to the editor in the local paper about how inappropriate it is, particularly when young children see it and ask what it means. In response, conservatives mention the F the President stickers that mimic the W stickers we've all grown so tired of seeing. It's apples and oranges to me.
Frequent use of the F word and other nasty rhetoric on the liberal blogs doesn't do us any favors. In fact, it makes us look like nasty versions of the Republican punditry that resort to name-calling absent any legitimate criticism. I think we can do better, and should.
The Crotchety Old Man
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It turns out that it's not education that makes you liberal. Liberals have evolved a different sense of innate empathetic ability that is lacking in "conservatives". They lack that and are hence "authoritarian". In past lives of mob rule thousands of years ago, the authoritarian approach is how your primitive tribe won out over the other primitive tribe. It's a carryover from former survival of the fittest regimes. I think it will eventually be bread out of humans, but it will take a while, as does most evolution.
Conservative is in quotes because the only thing they are conserving is their right to take away your rights.
Authoritarian is in quotes because it doesn't exactly mean a synonym of dictatorial, it's more like supporting their party no matter what they do, even if they agree more with other parties, ie, they listen solely to the authority figures they're accustomed to without thinking.
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