Substack cometh, and lo it is good. (Pricing)

One viewpoint to rule them all

I just read Ed Brayton’s commentary about an attack on a pro-life display on the campus of the University of Northern Kentucky. The professor who seems to have encouraged this is quoted as saying:

“Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged,” Jacobsen said.

First, great job on on refuting the stereotype that women think with their hearts rather than their head Herr Professor! “Outrage” or “repugnance,” Left or Right, it doesn’t matter. Affairs of the heart have a role to play in focusing the sights, but the trigger finger must be connected to the head.


That being said, I have a personal reflection to communicate in regards to the abortion issue and many liberals. For many years I’ve lived in a small town that is very far to the Left politically. One time I was listening to the radio, and the host (a liberal fellow himself) wanted to open up dialogue on the abortion issue with pro-life people. This was prompted by a local march where pro-lifers had displayed signs and what not. Two callers really struck me.
First, one woman called who was enraged, and her voice trembled because of her anger. She stated that the marchers should be prosecuted for hate crimes, because they were displaying hatred against women. When the host tried to pull her down from this position she not only refused, I don’t think she understood his logic in regards to free speech, she simply didn’t see it as a matter of expression. Rather, she stated that she had felt assaulted and violated, and that was that.
Second, a local instructor at a junior college called in and explained that he had many pro-life students, but, he told them that if they talked about their politial beliefs in regards to abortion they should justify their points, because it wasn’t an easy viewpoint to defend. The host asked if they might not believe that their position is easier to defend than the caller’s pro-choice position, and he responded, “Well, I never thought of that.”
The point here isn’t to suggest that pro-choice people are innately intolerant or narrow-minded, it is to suggest that liberal values of dissent and pluralism of opinion do not come naturally to most people, Left or Right.

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