[Politics] It isn't easy being Blue.

[davywavy]

Whilst out on the town a few weeks ago, I got talking to a girl in a bar. After a while, for reasons I can't recall, the conversation came round to politics. Suddenly she stopped short and looked at me quizzically.
"You're right-wing, aren't you?"
"Yup", I replied.
"Well, I don't think we should let homeless people starve to death on the street", she said, smugly ensuring her moral superiority over me and my homeless-starving ways whilst necking the booze I'd just bought her like there was no tomorrow.

A friend of mine who shares my political opinions once told me they didn't really like going to social events with many of my friends, because they knew that they would be belittled and insulted for holding their political beliefs. They found it upsetting that they would be insulted by people they barely knew not even for their beliefs, but for what those people considered their beliefs to be without even taking the time to find out the reality of the situation. In other circumstances this sort of behaviour would be considered 'prejudice'. When you're dealing with a lot of people I run into, it's called 'informed debate'. Sometimes it's nice to open LJ and read the wise words of the mind-numbingly gorgeous vulgarcriminal, who is political voice of reason.
The irony of the intellectual intolerance of many people amuses me in a bleak sort of way; most of the people on my friends list consider themselves to be tolerant, understanding and non-judgemental; however this just highlights the basic dichotomy of many people's political views - they're tolerant of any kink, perversion, social attitudes and outre behaviour which they happen to agree with. Their tolerance doesn't extend so far as being polite to people who think that, oh, say, civil liberties have been undermined quite a lot by the current government or that spending thirty-seven billion quid which we don't have every year in a slowing economy might lead to trouble later.
raggedhalo recently made a post in which he compared prejudice against vegetarians to homophobia, and presented himself as being a persecuted minority. Personally I think it's a bit difficult to be a persecuted minority when you're a socialist vegetarian in a student union, but that's just me.
Re-reading his post, it's interesting to me just how much of his argument I can apply to my own point. After all, if he can compare prejudice against sexualities with his own political views, so can I - to object to that would be prejudiced, wouldn't it? Back in the 1980's, being gay would get you socially ostracised and sometimes insulted in public, whilst being Conservative would get you social acceptance and congratulations on your snappy dress sense. And now...?
There's a comparison to be made here, I think...

Of course, I think Joe's comparison is as nonsensical as mine. But it's funny nevertheless.

Comments

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Well, i recall raggedhalo's post and basically thought it was a bunch of twaddle, and said so at the time.

Conservatives, like any group, suffer from their extremists. It's easy to hear "right-wing" and think "neo-nazi". Mrs Thatcher did a lot of damage to the image as well.

Socialists, like any group, suffer from their extremists. It's easy to hear "left-wing" and think "commie". Mr Stalin did a lot of damage to the image as well.

Roleplayers, like any group, suffer from their extremists. It's easy to hear "gamer" and think "Steekin' Dungeons and Dragons geek". Mr Gygax did a lot of damage to the image as well.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's intereseting that you should use as your examples Margaret Thatcher, who deregulated the financial markets and laid the ground for much of the economic growth and improvements of the standard of living we've seen in the last twenty years, and Stalin, who murdered 30 million of his own people.

Are your prejudices showing?
(Reply to this)(Parent)

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Nah, I was making an extreme point... Maggie's just a recent example of conservatives with an image problem. I can't use Tony Blair as a counter example because he's not even slightly left wing. Despite any good qualities M Thatcher might have had, you cannot deny that she had an image problem. And Stalin, well, he just had problems.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'm going to diagree with you there - TB is left wing insofar as he is enthusiastic about expanding the role of the public sector and he wants to exert as much state control as he can get away with over the lives of the people. Those are a socially left-wing political agenda, sure as I'm sitting here.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

Again, that's a POV issue. I see TB as taking away a lot of the public control with the introduction of public-private financed initiatives, foundation trusts and the like. He's much closer to centre than left-wing. He might be in the first set of seats in the left wing...

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

And Stalinism, to be fair, wasn't socialism -- even communism -- but was, in fact, state capitalism.