Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Makes you melancholy for old style liberalism. . .

Yes, I know it is an old joke.  But it is still funny.  The sign on the marquee of an Episcopal Church:

We welcome everyone willing to welcome anyone.*

(*The rest of you are welcome
to become Baptists or Missouri Synod Lutherans!
Okay, so you won't find this part on any marquee.  I just thought it was funny and most liberals were already thinking this way anyway...)

The rest are not welcome.  Period.  Don't bother.  Unless you have open borders, the borders are closed to you.  Unless you withhold judgment from everyone, anyone here is free to judge you.  So, unless you are agreeable to dropping all objective truth, our subjective truth is that you don't belong.

There was a day when old style liberals believed in the strength of their ideas.  They were willing to argue with those with whom they disagreed.  They sought engagement with those who held to other truths.  They were confident enough in their reasoning to believe that no reasonable person would not agree with them, if only they had a chance to talk with them.  No more, apparently. Liberalism has grown so weak it must be protected, so fragile that it cannot stand engagement with those who disagree, and so shallow that it has no arguments strong enough to withstand the public debate.  And to think, they say conservatives are narrow minded, weak, and fearful!  In my mind the surest sign of a weak position is the fear to debate with someone who disagrees and the desire to prevent those who disagree from having a chance at the microphone.


3 comments:

John Joseph Flanagan said...

I have met very few liberals who were NOT intolerant during the course of my life. An educated liberal who is willing to sit down and dialogue is more rare today than ever, although the professors and some students I encountered in college back in the sixties and seventies were ideologically resistant to reasonable arguments. Liberals are essentially into victimization, not amenable to logic or common sense. They will always accuse others of being close minded, but the liberal will rarely admit to the flaws in their own thinking. Today's liberal, as seen in many academics, pundits, television reporters, Democrats, and civil rights hucksters and homosexual advocates, are nastier, ruthless and bigoted against Christianity and conservatives. However, now they turn their assaults on even some of their own who step out of line and disagree with the party line or the current narrative. It is very dangerous for our country these days....because free speech is under fire. If we do not restore our right to disagree, the liberal zealots will handily create a utopian nightmare.

Ted Badje said...

The 60's changed the Democrat party, and other left-of-center movements. There are hardly any old New-Dealers left.

Janis Williams said...

Let us remember there are still (though few in number) democrats who long for the 'old' days, and do not agree with their party's agenda/platform. I know several 'committed Chistians' (Baptist, Orthodox, and yes, even Missouri Synod) who are still registered, faithful Democrats. The inability to argue (the old meaning - not 'fight') one's position shows either ignorance or fear. The same is true of Christianity. The very fact that we believe in a religion that can be proven false is our strength.

Christians should lead the way in true tolerance, and in the right ways to disagree and argue.