Wingnuts On Parade

There's been a lot of talk about freedom lately. Recent events in Iraq and the Ukraine show us that freedom and democracy are such attractive concepts that people want them, no matter how ham-fisted and amateurish the delivery system. It seems that tyranny has no long-term future.

But freedom has a symbiant, without which it cannot long survive. It is tolerance, a concept no one seems to be talking about. After the United States spent considerable blood and treasure dismantling the Taliban, the president's supporters on the religious right appear hell-bent (pardon the pun) on creating a Christian Taliban right here, branding dissent as un-American and organizing campaigns against any perceived threat, even SpongeBob. And before anyone accuses me of bias, let me note that a conservative speaker can scarcely open his mouth on a college campus these days without being shouted down by leftist students, a practice every bit as odious as anything dreamed up by a preacher with beautiful hair and a $2000 suit. We have entered an era where an honest difference of opinion is viewed as a character flaw by the other side. We don't want to walk a mile in another person's shoes; we want to burn his shoes, and make walking barefoot illegal.

Our national discourse should not become a zero-sum game. Please bear this in mind while watching cable-news pundits describe the president as a simpleton tool of big business, or compare Hillary Clinton unfavorably with Satan. The erosion of tolerance leaves the back door open for tyranny. Anywhere. Even here.