Liberal hypocrisy

Presidential candidate Herman Cain this week responded to Jon Stewart’s allegedly racially-tinged mockery of him by noting, “I’ve been called every name in the book because I’m a conservative and because I’m black.”

Since I have not yet seen Stewart’s bit, I can’t comment on it in too much detail, but my first reaction to this is extreme irritation and disappointment in Jon Stewart. I’m disgusted when so-called “liberals” demonize those who hold a different political philosophy and when they have meager tolerance for others’ ideas or rights to hold those ideas. I’m turned off by their narrow-minded belief that they hold the monopoly on ethics and enlightenment. So great is the arrogance and closed-mindedness at times on the “liberal” side of the aisle that many who preach its wisdom are shocked to be confronted with any other set of ideas. Conservatives, of course, can be every bit as narrow-minded. But the conservatives and independents I know tend to be less contemptuous, or at least less shocked, when confronted with others’ views. Maybe that is because, whether in school or around town (Manhattan, in my case), we are used to being called on the carpet and questioned, even criticized, for our views. We understand that people of goodwill can and do disagree and appreciate that doing so freely is part of our democracy and way of life.

Somehow when liberals are narrow-minded, it is an extra disappointment because it flies in the face of the principles of such architects of liberal thought as John Stuart Mill, for instance, who believed in the essential need for free speech and vigorous debate, and John Locke, who believed in the importance of questioning of authority regardless of who is in power (that includes Barack Obama).

Back to Herman Cain. Black conservatives – and forgive me for generalizing – have to be some of the toughest, most independent-thinking, and internally secure people in the nation. They take a lot of abuse from “join the crowd” types who comprise the majority of any group, and sadly, that even includes Americans, who are probably about the most independent-minded segment of humanity in history (which is not saying much).

It seems that despite the success of the civil rights movement, our country has not advanced to the point that we judge people as individuals.  Why should someone’s race even be considered relevant in assessing his or her political philosophy? When they engage in racially tinged attacks on black conservatives that imply that an individual’s political views should fall into line with others of the same skin color, those of today’s so-called “liberals” who do so actually degrade the term “liberal.” Herman Cain says these hypocrites have called him “Uncle Tom” and “shameful.”

They are totally blind to their own lack of true liberalism, or even understanding of the true meaning of the term.

This entry was written by Heather Robinson and posted on June 23, 2011 at 11:26 pm and filed under Blog. permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Keywords: 2012-election. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. */?>