With the Right once again doing their semantic drivel concerning homophobe and bigot Reverend Rick Warren being the recipient of the intolerance while the gay community who actually suffer it are the intolerant bigots, I had go dig this one out of the archives.
Those Intolerant of Intolerance are More Intolerant Than Those They Accuse of Being Intolerant!
The above convoluted semantic argument is often used to berate liberals for accusing conservatives of various forms of prejudice, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and racism. Though so absurd it seems unworthy of comment, it is still a debate they are winning through every area of the media, for this is the central theme regarding the issue of political correctness.
Years before political correctness had a name, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. arrived at a way of expressing the absurdity of all this. I paraphrase…
Intolerance was an important issue of debate between my parents. Father was of course, a good fascist, and was intolerant of just about everything, except of course, Nazi’s. Mother would ask that he not bring any of the uniformed, swastika laden soldiers into her home. My father would then accuse her of gross intolerance. My mother, rather than play the semantic game, would get out pencil and paper and begin her list.
Things Mother is intolerant of:
- Nazis
Things Father is Intolerant of:
- Jews
- Communists
- Queers
- Buddhists
- Lesbians
- Chinamen
- Negroes
- Hindus
- Japs
- Muslims
- Unionists
- Pollocks
- Environmentalists
- Arabs
- Catholics
- Mexicans
- Moslems
- Liberals
- Socialists
- Feminists
- Albanians
- Russians
Then Mother would search around for more paper. Mother always made a big thing out of searching around for more paper.