I follow a page on Facebook called "Being Liberal." They sometimes post political cartoons that make me laugh.
They also do a lot of Republican-bashing. This bothers me. Sure, some conservatives are self-righteous, hypocritical, and annoying. But so are some liberals. It's one thing to point out "Look, what you're saying here doesn't really match up with what you're saying over here," but it's quite another to openly disparage an entire political party just because some of its members are being dumb.
There's a lot of talk about making people be more tolerant and accepting of beliefs and lifestyle choices different from their own. Well...it works both ways, people.
I mean, with things like racism, too bad. Racial political and social equality is a thing that does and should exist. Segregation = not okay. End of story. But some beliefs are just based on what they believe the role of government should be in society, and that's a matter of opinion. I can think you're wrong. I can be infuriated by your opinion. I can think you're absolutely freaking insane. But that doesn't give me the right to be rude to you.
Let's take the insurance-covering-birth-control debate as an example. The people who want to limit access to it truly believe that using it is wrong. They aren't out on a vendetta against women. They're trying to make sure people do what they believe are good things. So even if I think they're dead wrong, and that even if they were right it isn't the government's place to be regulating something like that, I still need to understand that and treat them with the proper amount of respect.
"100 Things You Can Say To Irritate a Republican" is not terribly funny. "Math even conservatives can understand" is just offensive.
And okay, sometimes I do laugh at this type of joke. But as someone in my book club said, "We don't mean all conservative Christians. Just the crazy ones." Yeah...still feels wrong to me.
