Liberals hate bad ideas, Conservatives just hate people

By Justin “filthy liberal scum” Rosario
I get accused of being a liberal hatemonger for the stuff I write.  I have been described as being full of anger and hate, unreasoned prejudice and that I’m just plain old mean!  I’ve been told, a lot, that I’m just as bad as the Far Right.  A few comments have been laced with profanity.  I’ve only been threatened twice, so far.  My first thought is that if I’ve only been threatened twice, I’m not trying hard enough!  But then my second thought is “Hate?  Me?  Is that how I come off in my writing?”  So I went back and reread everything I’ve written.
Yeah, I don’t think so.  First, let’s dispense with the idea that I’m the “Far Left”.  If you think I’M on the far end of the Left, you literally have no idea what an extreme Left Winger is.  Presumably you think Obama is an extremist as well and that would make you one sadly ignorant individual.  I’m about as interested in full Communism or Socialism as Obama is in punishing Wall Street.  Let’s be serious here.
So how is what I say different from Right Winger hate speech?  What makes me and all the other liberal pundits so special?  There is one HUGE difference that gets glossed over:  Liberals hate ideas, Conservatives hate people.
Look at what liberals rail against.  We hate:

1. Poverty – We hate the idea that people should be homeless and children go hungry in the richest nation in the world.  The concept is obscene.
2. Racism – We hate that people are treated as inferior or “dangerous” simply for being a different color.  We hate that people still need to oppress others to elevate themselves.
3. Corporate greed – We hate that corporations have all the rights of “people” but none of the responsibilities.  When a corporation kills someone, no one goes to jail; they just pay a fine (maybe!) and they’re off on their merry way.
4. Environmental abuse – We hate that we’re poisoning the water we drink, the food we eat and the air we breathe.  It’s not about “saving the planet”; the planet will be just fine in the long run.  It’s about leaving an environment suitable for our children and grandchildren to live in.
5. Intolerance[i]
   1. For other religions – 1. Not everyone worships Jesus 2. Most of the people who DO worship Jesus don’t worship Republican Jesus and find your version of Christianity highly disturbing 3. That makes you the minority 4. Deal with it
   2. For other cultures – You love America, I get that.  So do I.  Loving America does not, however, require you to automatically hate every other country or treat the people from them like they were covered in disease.
   3. Inequality
      1. For women – Women are more than a life support system for the uterus.  They also happen to have other functions besides cooking, cleaning and the nookie.
      2. For the LGBT community – What two consenting adults do which each other is so utterly not your, my, or anyone else’s, concern.  There are real problems to solve.  This is not one of them.
      3. For the middle class and working poor – Breaking unions, reducing food stamps, eliminating public services, attacking public broadcasting, slashing billions from all manner of programs that help the needy and make the country a better place for hundreds of millions of people wouldn’t be so bad if that money wasn’t be directly funneled to a few thousand mega wealthy companies and private individuals.  Stop stealing our money, you don’t need it!

Notice how none of those are actual people (except for the handful of mega wealthy)?  It’s hard to be labeled a “hatemonger” when what you hate are intangibles.
Now, of course, some will say “But liberals hate conservatives!  How about that Mr. filthy liberal smarty pants?!”  Well, sure, we can’t stand conservatives and we may even say we “hate” them but we never seem to act on that hate in a concerted way.  When was the last time a crazed Lefty was arrested for planning to shoot up Fox News?  When was the last time a bunch of liberals beat up a banker and called him a “Dirty Usurer!”  Aside from the jackasses at PETA[ii] throwing red paint on fur coats, we’re not a particularly violent group.  “WEATHER UNDERGROUND!”  Sure, bunky.  How about something from THIS century?  How about the last 30 years?  No?  Nothing even worth hyping on Fox?  That must be quite the dry well.
Now let’s take a look at what the Right hates:

1. The poor – The Right doesn’t mind poverty itself, they generally feel that someone’s got to be on the bottom and as long as it’s not them then it’s all good.  They hate the poor for being so damn needy and lazy though!  Welfare, food stamps, school lunches; all of these waste tax dollars on people who don’t really deserve it.
2. Minorities – Right Wing acts of violence and discrimination are so many, I’m not even going to bother listing them.  Deny it all you want, the conservative movement is intensely racist at its very core.
3. The entire LGBT community – Right Wing acts of violence and discrimination are so many You already know where this is going…
4. Intellectuals – Being educated is the surest sign that you’re some kind of snob to a conservative.  How you can insist that America is the greatest country in the world while condemning teachers as being greedy and lazy is truly beyond me.  You DO understand that without a properly educated populace, we won’t have the tools necessary to maintain our status as “totally awesome!” for much longer?
5. The Government (specifically a Democratic one) – The ongoing efforts to demonize anyone with authority has resulted in dead police officers, dead FBI agents, death threats against judges and Congresspeople and several plots to start a revolution against the legally elected government.  I don’t care how shrill your protests of “ISOLATED INCIDENT” get; these are real people getting killed because of YOUR political beliefs.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

There’s a reason almost all of the violence comes from the Right.  The Right needs someone to focus its rage on because that is its fuel.  Without emotional manipulation, the Right has nothing substantial to support its claims and so they target an ever-changing cast of “boogiemen” to vent their frustration on.  “It’s YOUR fault everything is bad!”  “YOU’RE stealing all the good jobs!”  “YOU want to take all my hard earned money!”
Conversely, the Left is truly compromised of idealists in a most literal sense of the word.  We fight for and against an idea.  Our “boogiemen” are behaviors and antiquated ways of thinking.  Does that make us thought police?  Sure, whatever rationale makes you happy.  But try to remember that no one is born racist.  No one is born afraid of The Gay.  These are all learned responses, taught by the angry and narrow minded to their children.  Just as physically abusing a child is terrible, we feel that mentally abusing a child by teaching them to hate is just as wrong.
The good news is that bad ideas have a historical tendency to wither and die.  Slavery, child labor, oppression of women and minorities, fear of homosexuality; all of these things have either fallen or are well on their way to falling by the wayside.  Progress is notoriously difficult to undo despite the best efforts of the GOP to turn back the clock and hate cannot be sustained forever.  Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, GOP…

RIP GOP 1854-Soon.