# "If liberals are so tolerant, they should tolerate the hatred of liberals" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2008, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465 "2008-02-06T01:38:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/141 "2008-02-07T07:28:15Z")
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion] Not to presume to answer for **elucidator** , but it would depend on the importance you placed on having a Marine recruiting office located in Berkeley (compared to, say, the importance of allowing blacks to attend public schools and universities, a case in which the end was important enough to justify federal intervention). Just because the end sometimes justifies the means doesn’t mean that the end always justifies the means. I don’t have an opinion on how important it is to have a Marine recruiting office in Berkeley; I would have to hear the arguments on both sides. [/QUOTE] They’d have to travel a few more miles. If they couldn’t, they’d make a hell of a bunch of Marines. Not that there is any indication that the Berkeley City Government would stand in the recruiting station door or anything. Berkeley ain’t what it used to be. We took the son of a friend there one day a few years ago and ran into a riot. They burned a car in the street. It turned out the organizers had bought the car to burn. A store window got broken - the organizers were terribly apologetic and paid for it. It’s almost a theme park these days. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/142 "2008-02-07T07:34:21Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] By today’s standards Ike was a liberal. When I was just a wee lad, there were such things as liberal Republicans, odd as it seems today. Wallace, btw, was in JFKs time. Or did Ike get James Meredith into Ole Miss? [/QUOTE] Wallace _was_ in JFK’s time, but over in Alabama. When JFK got James Meredith into Ole Miss, it was Governor Ross Barnett who provided the main opposition. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/143 "2008-02-07T14:23:08Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] They’d have to travel a few more miles. If they couldn’t, they’d make a hell of a bunch of Marines. [/QUOTE] So, a law outlawing abortion clinics within the city limits of Salt Lake City is perfectly acceptable. So the women have to drive a few more miles - so what? Get to the back of the bus and quit complaining. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/144 "2008-02-07T14:29:01Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] So, a law outlawing abortion clinics within the city limits of Salt Lake City is perfectly acceptable. So the women have to drive a few more miles - so what? Get to the back of the bus and quit complaining. Regards, Shodan [/QUOTE] 😃 I have to admit, I enjoyed this one. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/145 "2008-02-07T14:41:26Z")
I have to admit, I’m not surprised. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/146 "2008-02-07T15:08:46Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] By today’s standards Ike was a liberal. When I was just a wee lad, there were such things as liberal Republicans, odd as it seems today. [/QUOTE] I think it is a problem to talk about this using “today’s standards”. Liberals in the 1950s had nothing but contempt for Eisenhower, and liberals like you today want to disown Fulbright - even though his liberal credentials weren’t much in question back in the day. Ike was a moderate conservative, and Senator William Fulbright was a liberal internationalist, a strong supporter of the UN, a critic of the Vietnam War, and a segregationist. Say what you will about him - he wasn’t a conservative. I think you ought to come to terms with this history and not deny it. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/147 "2008-02-07T15:25:27Z")
By the way, still waiting for that Top Ten list of conservatives in the forefront of the Civil Rights movement. I mean, you seem to have the names of Dems who were insufficiently progressive at your very fingertips, surely you can rattle off the names of conservatives who were leading the charge for full equality. You know, to help us come to terms with history, and not deny it. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/148 "2008-02-07T16:10:50Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] So, a law outlawing abortion clinics within the city limits of Salt Lake City is perfectly acceptable. So the women have to drive a few more miles - so what? Get to the back of the bus and quit complaining. Regards, Shodan [/QUOTE] That’s kind of how I feel about churches, too. I don’t really want any where I live. So what if the evangelicals have to drive a few more miles? Military recruitment, abortion, and religious worship. One of these things is not like the others. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/149 "2008-02-07T16:21:22Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] I think it is a problem to talk about this using “today’s standards”. Liberals in the 1950s had nothing but contempt for Eisenhower, [/quote] You omitted ‘some’ in front of ‘liberals.’ You weren’t around in the 1950s, so anything you know about the attitudes of liberals generally towards Ike would have come from sources other than personal experience. Please to cite them if you wish to make a stronger claim than the modified version I’ve produced. > [@](#): > > I think you ought to come to terms with this history and not deny it. As I’ve already pointed out, that’s exactly what the Dems did back in the 1960s - came to terms with their past (and present), and _changed_. They faced down the racists within the party and made a commitment to being the party of civil rights. The racists either retired, concealed their racism, or went over to the [del]dark side[/del] GOP, which (as I’ve pointed out) gladly took them in. And while the GOP became less _overtly_ racist over time, they simply changed tactics, as [Lee Atwater pointed out](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater): > [@](#): > > You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. Kinda like St. Ronald Reagan kicking off his 1980 Presidential campaign in Philadelphia, MS. That particular dog whistle’s high-pitched, but it’s still in the audible range for most people. Anyway, I’m waiting for the GOP to come to terms with _its_ racist past - and present. There’s plenty of anti-brown-people sentiment in the GOP these days, whether the brown people were born in Mexico or the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/150 "2008-02-07T16:52:45Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] So, a law outlawing abortion clinics within the city limits of Salt Lake City is perfectly acceptable. [/quote] Whether or not it is _acceptable_ is a valid question, but it has nothing to do with _tolerance_. If you believe that abortion is a fundamental right then such an action is an infringement of such fundamental right. Tolerance is irrelevant to the matter. It is exactly the same as the marine recruiter situation. Such a banning might be beyond the powers of a city council, but it has nothing to do with tolerance. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/151 "2008-02-07T16:53:19Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] By the way, still waiting for that Top Ten list of conservatives in the forefront of the Civil Rights movement. I mean, you seem to have the names of Dems who were insufficiently progressive at your very fingertips, surely you can rattle off the names of conservatives who were leading the charge for full equality. [/QUOTE] Abraham Lincoln Ulysses S. Grant (cracked down hard on the Klan, supported civil rights for blacks) Dwight D. Eisenhower (sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957) Everett Dirksen - without him those aforementioned Civil Rights bills wouldn’t have passed. Frederick Douglass (his realization that the Constitution was at heart an anti-slavery document was both fundamentally conservative and key to eventual victory in his cause.) Booker T. Washington (Republican, fundamentally conservative in his approach, but not afraid to push boundaries if he could - he funded many court challenges to segregation.) Charles Colson (tireless advocate of prison reform) I hope you’ll accept this as a pretty good start. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/152 "2008-02-07T17:13:48Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] Kinda like St. Ronald Reagan kicking off his 1980 Presidential campaign in Philadelphia, MS. That particular dog whistle’s high-pitched, but it’s still in the audible range for most people. [/QUOTE] Really? Well, I wonder what you hear when you understand that Reagan was speaking at the Neshoba County Fair, and when Dukakis spoke at the same event in 1988, [He toned down the civil-rights rhetoric considerably.](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEEDC1F38F93AA2575BC0A96E948260&scp=3&sq=dukakis+neshoba&st=nyt) > [@](#): > > The main body of the speech was Mr. Dukakis’s standard stump speech on economic opportunity. But it contained a more forceful statement on civil rights than Mr. Dukakis delivered two weeks earlier to a virtually all-white crowd at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi. There, he elected to omit reference to three civil rights workers who were slain in 1964 near Philadelphia, Miss., in one of the most brutal murders of the civil rights era in the South, and made scant mention of civil rights issues. [Jesse Jackson admonished Dukakis for toning down his rhetoric there.](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEED71439F932A2575BC0A96E948260&scp=2&sq=dukakis+neshoba&st=nyt) [David Brooks discusses this double standard pretty thoroughly.](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/opinion/09brooks.html) Seems to me you’re going after Reagan for campaigning, and ignoring similar sins by Dukakis. Now, I’ll guess that you didn’t know that Dukakis campaigned there - but maybe you ought to wonder why that isn’t commonly known. Sometimes these little political legends are just that - legends. And while Reagan probably should have mentioned civil rights more forcefully in Mississippi in 1980, that can be said of Dukakis in 1988 as well. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/153 "2008-02-07T17:13:49Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] Whether or not it is _acceptable_ is a valid question, but it has nothing to do with _tolerance_. If you believe that abortion is a fundamental right then such an action is an infringement of such fundamental right. Tolerance is irrelevant to the matter. It is exactly the same as the marine recruiter situation. Such a banning might be beyond the powers of a city council, but it has nothing to do with tolerance. [/QUOTE] Of course it does - don’t be absurd. Trying to exile someone who is doing something legal but with which you disagree is exactly the opposite of tolerance. This is like arguing that the KKK running voter registration workers out of town has nothing to do with tolerance. Tolerance means respecting other people’s opinions, even if you disagree with them. Let’s be serious here. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/154 "2008-02-07T17:16:53Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Ike was a moderate conservative, and Senator William Fulbright was a liberal internationalist, a strong supporter of the UN, a critic of the Vietnam War, and a segregationist. Say what you will about him - he wasn’t a conservative. [/quote] He certainly was conservative on matters of race. People’s views tend to be a mixture of liberal and conservative positions (and even that’s an over-simplification). That’s why I prefer to talk about _conservatism_ and _liberalism_ rather than “conservatives” and “liberals”. > [@](#): > > I think you ought to come to terms with this history and not deny it. Being liberal means that you don’t have to be a follower of a past movement or leader or political party. You learn lessons from history, but you don’t have to take responsibility for it or be dictated to by it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/155 "2008-02-07T17:35:57Z")
[QUOTE=sqweels] He certainly was conservative on matters of race. [/QUOTE] No, he was racist on matters of race. You’re defining racism as a conservative trait - I don’t think that’s necessarily true, and there certainly have been lots of liberals (and leftists) who were and are racists. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/156 "2008-02-07T17:40:22Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Abraham Lincoln Ulysses S. Grant (cracked down hard on the Klan, supported civil rights for blacks) Dwight D. Eisenhower (sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957) Everett Dirksen - without him those aforementioned Civil Rights bills wouldn’t have passed. Frederick Douglass (his realization that the Constitution was at heart an anti-slavery document was both fundamentally conservative and key to eventual victory in his cause.) Booker T. Washington (Republican, fundamentally conservative in his approach, but not afraid to push boundaries if he could - he funded many court challenges to segregation.) Charles Colson (tireless advocate of prison reform) I hope you’ll accept this as a pretty good start. [/QUOTE] Let me help you out here. The cognomen “Civil Rights movement” is commonly understood as a relatively modern phenomenon, going back to Sargon of Akkad is not really in the scope of things here. I mean, Abe Lincoln? You’re yanking my chain, right? You know, its ok just to say "I got nothin’ ". ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/157 "2008-02-07T17:42:53Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Let me help you out here. The cognomen “Civil Rights movement” is commonly understood as a relatively modern phenomenon, going back to Sargon of Akkad is not really in the scope of things here. I mean, Abe Lincoln? You’re yanking my chain, right? You know, its ok just to say "I got nothin’ ". [/QUOTE] I was going to go through that list and figure out the average length of time between the death of each of those people and, say, 1960 or so, but I figured, “Why bother?” The list speaks for itself. ETA: Charles Colson? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/158 "2008-02-07T17:50:01Z")
Look, you want to ask him how prison reform is a racial equality issue, you go right ahead, I damn sure ain’t gonna, I’m afraid he’ll tell me. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/159 "2008-02-07T17:50:54Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] ETA: Charles Colson? [/QUOTE] Oh, yeah, he’s real tolerant–as long as you’re not gay or a biologist. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465/160 "2008-02-07T17:58:29Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] I was going to go through that list and figure out the average length of time between the death of each of those people and, say, 1960 or so, but I figured, “Why bother?” The list speaks for itself. ETA: Charles Colson? [/QUOTE] Again, you’re drawing lines to most suit you and then demanding to know where my side fits. Sorry, I won’t play that game. There was more to civil rights history than the NAACP and the SCLC, you know. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-liberals-are-so-tolerant-they-should-tolerate-the-hatred-of-liberals/436465.md?page=9)