The perjoratives of choice

Have you noticed how many self-proclaimed "liberal" or "progressive" thinkers describe even mild criticism of their points of view as "hateful"?

To hear some of my progressive friends tell it, any varsity "hating" team would have to include Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, John Stossel,* and everyone who draws a paycheck from FOX News-- and we haven't even mentioned major religious figures yet-- Monty Python was only partly right on that score, because among progressives, at least, everybody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

(If you have to ask why there are no "people of color" on that "hating" team, then you're just not with the program, baby. Try to keep up.)

I don't follow every word these alleged haters say (progressives call it "spew"), much less agree with everything that I do hear from them now and then, but I will say this: No one in that partial list makes a living off hate. They criticize; they entertain; they propose or object to legislation; they comment on the passing scene, but they're all happy rather than hate-filled warriors. The problem from a progressive point of view is threefold: First, they notice things. Second, they ask questions. Third, they refuse to shut up. Apparently, that inconvenient combination makes them "haters."

It's an Orwellian (and often determinedly ahistorical) world when anyone who bucks the preferred narrative is automatically guilty of a hate crime, and automatically a target for lesser-known but still virulent progressive hatred. To progressives of the "bird bath" persuasion, busy cultivating an outrage that is broad but not deep, conservatism itself is synonymous with hatred, and fascism has no roots in leftism (Jonah Goldberg isn't the first to have shed light on those embarrassing links, by the way-- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn beat him to it).

Methinks there's a fair amount of "dismiss the source so you can ignore the argument" going on here, garnished with a wholly imaginary right to Never Be Offended or Even Discomfited and a studious allegiance to Nonjudmentalism as an article of faith, with an important exception for Judging the Allegedly Intolerant.

To all of which I can only say, "Do you know the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane?" He's probably hateful, too.

In settings where decorum matters (i.e., when they can't beat up people like conservative tee shirt vendor Kenneth Gladney with impunity), progressives check "hate" at the door but still accuse their critics of being "divisive." For that to be understood as the mild or anguished more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger barb it is meant to be, however, everyone to whom it is broadcast must agree with the presumption that unanimity of feeling is always preferable to disagreement. This bias in favor of homogenized outlooks is especially comical when it comes (as it often does) from people who otherwise think the world of "diversity." Do they not see the hypocrisy in themselves?

* Stossel is taking heat from the usual suspects because (like Ron Paul and a few other contrarians) he dared to question the Constitutional fallout from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His dispassionate wielding of the Law of Unintended Consequences on broadcast TV was converted by progressive alchemists into primal rage from Stossel at anyone whose skin color is darker than his own. I don't see it, because it isn't there, and because these progressive alchemists are the same people who heard an unspoken "boy" after Representative Joe Wilson said "You lie!" to President Obama during a health care speech to members of Congress.

N.B.: That "perjorative" in the post title should be "pejorative" (full spellout as "the pejoratives of choice")