Inconvenient Values

WARNING: Extensive Use of Quotation Marks to Follow ...

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Help me understand something, okay?

Let’s try to be as objective and as Vulcan as possible. (That’s nerdese for dispassionate reasoning.)

Ahem.

Is not “tolerance” one of the Left’s highest values?

Also, “non-judgmentalism” is too, correct? Since all avenues to Truth are valid, who has the right to cast aspersions upon someone else’s beliefs? Conservatives like me disagree with this proposition, but to liberals is this not a bedrock value held on par with “tolerance”?

So, “tolerance” and “non-judgmentalism” are at least two of the highest-held values of the Left.

Do we agree there?

Now … let’s take the Wiccan religion.

As a believing, practicing Catholic steeped in the rigor of the rationality of Thomas Aquinas (well, I’d like to think so, but I have such a long, long way to go), my opinion of Wicca is that it is pure nonsense. Utter rubbish. Foolishness. Paganism. Not the way to Truth. I can keep going if I want to. Point is, I am not non-judgmental when it comes to Ideas. But, remember, liberals are supposed to be. They themselves claim to be.

Liberals have to accept that the practice of Wicca is a valid “life journey” or “worldview” or whatever. Even if they don’t agree with its core values, because, hey, deep down, no one has a monopoly on the Truth, so therefore, no one can know the Truth. Wicca can be Truth, in a liberal worldview. As a liberal, one must not be judgmental in any way shape form, and one must be tolerant – supremely tolerant – of any and all viewpoints.

Still agree with me?

Now let me mention two words: Christine O’Donnell. Let me add six more: Republican Candidate for Senator from Delaware.

See where I’m about to go?

The media – and by “media” I include the Daily Show and SNL, because sizeable chunks of the public get their news only from these outlets – the media, to varying degrees are working to portray this woman as a kook because she experimented with Wicca in college two decades ago. Of course this plays wonderfully into the fortunes of her Democratic opponent. Now, I’m not familiar with the details of the race down in Delaware, but I believe O’Donnell is trailing by anywhere from 5-10 points, and this whole Wiccan thing has saddled her with a possibly insurmountable obstacle.

But specific details about her election race are not important to the wider point I want to make.

What happened to “tolerance” and “nonjudgmentalism”?

Why isn’t her opponent and his accomplices of varying degrees in the communication field not fully espousing their twin pillars of virtue in this instance?

In fact, shouldn’t they be “celebrating” her choice to “celebrate” the Wiccan “religion”?

Indeed, they are not. They are willingly insinuating and sometimes deliberating overstating that O’Donnell must be nutty for espousing such a view, even if it was twenty years ago.

They are willing to set aside their Principles (“tolerance”! “nonjudgmentalism”!) to allow a member of the Approved Political Party to achieve power.

Therefore, I can only come to the conclusion that any liberal who derides Ms. O’Donnell is a

HYPOCRITE.

Isn’t that the term for someone who insists others act in a certain way while simultaneously acting in the opposite way, often for personal gain, such as “power” via election in this case?

Now …

Please correct me if I am wrong in any of my assumptions or conclusions.

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N.B.

I think O’Donnell is an embarrassment. She is a living, breathing personification of George Bush’s speech impediment. I wish she wasn’t running. She makes us traditional conservatives look bad. She does.

That being said, if I lived in Delaware I would vote for her over her opponent. Simply because her political ideology is better suited to deal with the economic crisis this country faces than that of her opponent. Normally, I like gridlock in Congress. So we need a fair percentage of liberals in there. But right now, with our economy in tatters and getting worse by the minute, we need to get as many liberals out of Congress as possible, and I think we will do that in less than four weeks.