Weekly Opinion Editorial
THE INTOLERANCE OF THE TOLERANT
by Steve Fair
2016 is almost in the books and it has
been an interesting year. Most news
organizations rank the presidential election and the ultimate election of
Donald Trump as the #1 news story for the year.
Trump’s election has created unprecedented angst among many liberals. When President Obama was elected in 2008,
many conservatives mourned, but the grief being expressed by the left over the
election of Trump has been unbelievable.
The liberal New York Times wrote in a
recent editorial: “2016 will enter
history as a pivot that revealed the depth of the fears, alienation and
frustration of our times, abruptly upending many of our assumptions about the
future.” The doom and gloom the
liberal left has expressed since November 8th has been unreal. Liberals have exhibited little tolerance for conservatives.
Many liberals preach tolerance, but fail
to practice it. The issue of intolerance
for conservative ideas was recently addressed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show. Host, Joe Scarborough led a panel discussion
on the lack of diversity of thought on most U.S. college campuses. “You only have one out of ten professors
that are Republicans or conservatives. You can’t understand the world if you
don’t let it in behind your gates,” Scarborough said. The panel was discussing an editorial in the
New York Times written by Nicholas Kristof titled, “The Dangers of Echo
Chambers on Campus. Kristof, an admitted
liberal, wrote about liberals: “We
champion tolerance, except for conservatives and evangelical Christians. We
want to be inclusive of people who don’t look like us — so long as they think
like us.” Kristof concludes that
institutions of higher learning have become lazy by not presenting to students
both sides of an issue. They have failed
to truly educate students on how the real world works and never present a
conservative slant to any issue. They have
failed to develop critical thinking skills in modern students. Most college campuses are nothing more than
indoctrination centers, requiring students to simply regurgitate the liberal professor’s
philosophy if they want to pass the course.
The fact is the U.S. Constitution guarantees
freedom of speech and that includes freedom to hold conservative or liberal
values. Conservatives have the same constitutionally
protected right to express their opinion as a liberal. Liberals have championed the right of what
they consider the ‘oppressed,’ but then oppress those that differ with their
viewpoint.
A great example of the intolerance of the
so called tolerant was a CEO in New Mexico who wrote his business clients after
the election of Donald Trump and told them that he wouldn’t do business with
any who had voted for Donald Trump. He
wanted his clients to declare their Party affiliation and if any were
Republican, he would cease doing business with them. He said he had a ‘moral obligation’ to take a
stand. In his letter, he branded Trump a
racist and fascist. Liberals rushed to
the CEO’s defense and applauded his moral conviction. Ironically the same liberals said the baker
who would not bake a cake for a gay wedding because of his religious conviction
didn’t have the right to discriminate. Such blatant hypocrisy doesn’t escape even
the clear thinking liberal.
Most conservatives are confident enough in
their worldview they welcome the open exchange of thought. Many liberals agree. While Senator Bernie Sanders is much too
liberal for the vast majority of Americans, he is respected in the U.S. Senate for
the way he expresses his argument and the respect he returns to those who
disagree with him. While asked what Republican in the Senate he
considered to be his friend, Sanders citied Senator Jim Inhofe. Two men could hardly be further apart on the
issues, but they have learned to ‘agree to disagree’ in a spirit of respect.
How does academia retool their system of
education and encourage students develop critical thinking skills? They could mandate the hiring of more
conservatives or encourage the free exchange of ideas in the classroom. Certainly that would a great first step, but
until the leaders of higher education recognize and respect that people with
conservative values are critical to providing a balanced education experience
for students, it will be nothing more than lip service.
Tolerance is defined as the ability or
willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or
behavior that one does not necessarily agree with. Hopefully in 2017, both liberals and
conservatives will not just preach tolerance for another’s ideas and opinions,
but practice it.
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