Multiculturalism Doesn’t Apply To People Liberals Don’t Like
Bart Hinkle points out that there’s a bit of a gap in the liberal left’s feelings of tolerance:
After the FBI busted Mohamed Mohamud for trying to murder scores of Portland, Ore., residents with a car bomb late last month, Portland Mayor Sam Adams issued a warning to his fellow residents: “Bad actions by one member of any group,” he wrote, “should not be generalized or applied more widely to other members of that same group.”
This truism has become a cliché in the age of terrorism. In the wake of any attempted terrorist attack, the most dangerous place to be in America is between a microphone and the dozens of liberals desperate to point out, yet again, that the tiny minority of radical Muslims who embrace extremism and violence should not give other Muslims a bad name.
This is rather different from how contemporary American liberalism treats, say, contemporary American conservatism. To many liberals, there is a seamless progression leading ineluctably from support for things like tax cuts to support for things like mass murder.
Take the case of Juan Williams. Faster than you can say “thoughtcrime,” NPR handed Williams his walking papers in October for lumping together Muslims and terrorism. But he didn’t raise a single eyebrow at the network in March when he said the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag popular among Tea Partiers was “the same imagery that was on Timothy McVeigh.” A month later, Brian Montopoli asked, “Could Tea Party Rhetoric Lead to Another Oklahoma City?” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell made the same connection a couple of months ago: “Locked and loaded. Since Barack Obama became president, the number of heavily-armed anti-government militias has tripled. That’s right, tripled. The surge in recruits to what could be the training ground of our next Timothy McVeigh parallels the rise of the Tea Party. . . .”
Even former President Bill Clinton has suggested there are “legitimate” comparisons to be drawn between McVeigh and the populist anger of the Tea Party movement.
For many liberals, the equation is obvious: Tea Partiers are mad at the government. Timothy McVeigh was mad at the government. Therefore, the Tea Partiers are no different from Timothy McVeigh. They just haven’t bought the fertilizer yet.
Funny how that works, no?
Tags: tea party, tolerance
