Oh, Pity the Poor Republicans

A primer in discrimination against us GOPers
Instapundit Whines


A new conservative mind virus is at large and making its way through the right wing blogs and beyond. Apparently, the Republicans are victims of prejudice and bigotry. This is another example of the kind of "logic" (literalism that's too clever by half) that YAFers that never quite grew up just love. One of the conservative "victims" :

When somebody makes a prejudicial comment about Republicans in my presence, I play a private game. I replay the sentence in my mind—only I substitute a word like "black" or "lesbian" or "Mexican" in place of the word "Republican." In performing this verbal sleight-of-hand, it becomes increasingly apparent that the speaker of the sentence may harbor views not generally considered to be tolerant or open-minded.

The writer here is half right, these views would not be considered tolerant or open-minded if they were about minorities, but this does not mean that they are intolerant when they are aimed at Republicans. Its just not the same, those comments might be rude depending on the context, but they certainly aren’t bigoted, at least not anymore bigoted then lawyer jokes. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, people choose to be Republicans; it is a set of opinions, not part of their identity like race, sexual orientation or religion. Secondly, the Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) have never suffered serious oppression or discrimination unlike ethnic or religious minorities. I think comments like “I hate these Republicans Neanderthals” are more along the lines of personal insults rather than any kind of “hate speech”. It’s the height of thin-skinnedness to be deeply bothered by such these kinds of remarks and to compare them to real intolerance, the center-left catches plenty of flack, but I never claim to be the victim of prejudice. Its also a bit odd to hear conservatives wailing about how their the victims of so much hate when they control all of the federal government, most state government and much of the press and are always giving stern lectures to certain groups (minorities) on the importance of not wallowing in victimhood.

Blasted Republican Idiots.

Note:
the Chicagoboyz have also commented on this topic, but to their credit (they are smarter than the average righty), have avioided being as completely foolish as the folks that I mentioned (and attacked) and actually made some pretty good points in their post about it.