www.townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/printdp20041207.shtml
Commentators on our country explain our blue-red division in many ways--liberal-conservative; secular-religious; North-South; coasts-heartland; singles-married with children.
I propose one more explanation: the easily offended-the not so easily offended.
Having given thousands of lectures across the country and on seven continents (yes, Antartica too) over the past 30 years, I can vouch for the personal -offense element. I am continually astounded at how often members of the audience (usually liberal women) will say they are offended by something I said, when what they really meant is they don't agree with me.
It is most unlikely that conservative men or women speak that way--saying, "I am offended"--when they hear liberals speakers.
For one thing, conservatives are so used to being labeled as stupid, bigoted, ignorant, racist, homophobic, sexist, insensitive and intolerant that it is almost impossible to offend them. Moreover, the culture does not allow them to feel offended, since they are not an officially designated minority.
For another, liberal positions are far more emotion-based then reason-based.
To cite but one of many examples, take the widely held liberal slogan "War is not the answer" It is pure irrationality. War has ended more evil than anything the left has ever thought of. In the last 60 years alone, it ended Nazism and the Holocaust; it saved half of Korea from genocide; it kept Israel from national extinction and a second Holocaust; it saved Finland from becoming a Stalinist totalitarian state; and according to most of the people who put "War is not the answer" stickers on their bumpers, it saved Bosnian Muslims from ethnic cleansing.
Liberal Jews and non-Jews claim the "Merry Christmas" offends Jews and other non-Christians. That 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas is of no importance to the easily offended.
Part of America remaons the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. An almost equally large part is now the Land of the Easily Offended and the Home of the Hypersensitive. Which land we become is a big part of the second American civil war we are fighting.
Dennis Prager
Commentators on our country explain our blue-red division in many ways--liberal-conservative; secular-religious; North-South; coasts-heartland; singles-married with children.
I propose one more explanation: the easily offended-the not so easily offended.
Having given thousands of lectures across the country and on seven continents (yes, Antartica too) over the past 30 years, I can vouch for the personal -offense element. I am continually astounded at how often members of the audience (usually liberal women) will say they are offended by something I said, when what they really meant is they don't agree with me.
It is most unlikely that conservative men or women speak that way--saying, "I am offended"--when they hear liberals speakers.
For one thing, conservatives are so used to being labeled as stupid, bigoted, ignorant, racist, homophobic, sexist, insensitive and intolerant that it is almost impossible to offend them. Moreover, the culture does not allow them to feel offended, since they are not an officially designated minority.
For another, liberal positions are far more emotion-based then reason-based.
To cite but one of many examples, take the widely held liberal slogan "War is not the answer" It is pure irrationality. War has ended more evil than anything the left has ever thought of. In the last 60 years alone, it ended Nazism and the Holocaust; it saved half of Korea from genocide; it kept Israel from national extinction and a second Holocaust; it saved Finland from becoming a Stalinist totalitarian state; and according to most of the people who put "War is not the answer" stickers on their bumpers, it saved Bosnian Muslims from ethnic cleansing.
Liberal Jews and non-Jews claim the "Merry Christmas" offends Jews and other non-Christians. That 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas is of no importance to the easily offended.
Part of America remaons the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. An almost equally large part is now the Land of the Easily Offended and the Home of the Hypersensitive. Which land we become is a big part of the second American civil war we are fighting.
Dennis Prager
