[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

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

It must be said, I have noticed that there are rather a lot of people out there who are really into being open minded and tolerant, as long as you're open minded and tolerant in the same way as them. It's slowly getting to be a bugbear of mine - people who say they are open minded, because they are able to listen to tales of bisexual six in a bed romps, but will get incredibly condemnatory of someone who has served in the military (clearly a bad person), or votes Tory, or wears fur.

It isn't tolerance when you've just found new things to be morally righteous about.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is that tolerance has to have limits. You can't just go around tolerating every viewpoint, because some are actually evil. Unfortunately, the judgement as to what is actually evil is a personal decision.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Which I understand entirely. Everyone is, after all, in the same place. The anti-abortion campaigners in the US who picket clinics and throw things at doctors (and I am sure are cited by the noble tolerant left wing as EVIL) are, after all, just drawing the line somewhere and saying 'it's not OK to murder babies because they are inconvenient'. Heck, if I really believed that 2 week old foetus was exactly the same as that baby gurgling in its cot, I'd be a tad upset at the thought of it being killed off.

The people who want to ban gay marriage are drawing a line somewhere and saying 'no. That isn't right', because by their own morality, it isn't.

I do understand this. As I said, what irritates me are the people who are very very righteous about people being judgemental about their own personal areas of moral laxity (laxity might be the wrong word) in areas such as polyamory (the poly crew are particularly bad for this) or very righteous about their own crusades to stop what they perceive as 'bad', such as the anti-fur bridgade, and yet they seem flabberghasted and appalled that anyone could take a moral stand against them.

I came across an LJ entry a while ago from a shop assistant who disapproved of fur, and so had decided that every time someone came into her shop wearing fur, she'd slip an anti-fur leaflet into their bag as she served them. She didn't seem to understand that this was harassment, none of her business, and absolutely no different to the fundementalist christians who hand out leaflets to people telling them they are going to hell. I think she may be my clearest example of that kind of attitude.

But yeah...tricky as to where the limit to tolerance is.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

And that, my dear, is exactly my point. You can have any beliefs or opinions you like - so long as they agree with mine.