1 Boring Old Man

Obviously, Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, and Tom Delay have gotten me to thinking about what "Liberal" means. Delay’s comments don’t really count, they’re so laughable, He’s still on the Liberals want big government, big spending, high taxes kick. In many ways, Rove is in the same camp. At this point, anyone who falls for that is either uninformed, or simply jumping on the hate bandwagon. Those things are simply not true. The proof isn’t hard to find. Look at any graph of government spending, the deficit, any parameter would dispel such claims. The only one of these three who makes comments that need to be even considered, as much as I hate to admit it, is Ann Coulter. She’s one of the most contentious and nasty people on the planet, but she raises two points in her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism that need to be taken seriously. First, she claims that liberals put people out front who are "infallable," notably the 911 widows from New Jersey, and Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier killed in Iraq. Her second accusation is that liberals have a code of political correctness that’s church-like, and that this church-like code specifically opposes God and Christianity. In the case of this latter claim, she recurrently brings up Creationism versus what she calls Darwinism. She also, like most right wing writers, mentions sexual orientation:

As a matter of faith, liberals believe: Darwinism is a fact, people are born gay, child-molesters can be rehabilitated, recycling is a virtue, and chastity is not.

"The Liberal Doctrine of Infallability"

These four women are critical of President Bush, as is Cindy Sheehan. Ann Coulter says the "left" has something to do with these women speaking out. I don’t know anything that even suggests that to be true. They’re speaking out on their own. Good for them! But it is typical of Ann Coulter to make such statements. In mental health circles, we call this the "pseudocommunity" of paranoid people – lumping people into some kind of conspiracy, simply because they are all people who disagree with one’s point. Are these women liberals? I don’t know. Were they put out there by the "left" because they are infallable? I don’t think so. Maybe they’re out there because they’re right…

"Darwinism is fact"

I presume by Darwinism, she means the theory of Evolution. Darwin was a scientist, a career he pursued after attending Seminary. He was an active member of the Church of England until his death. He did renounce Spiritual Christianity later in life, not because of his theories, but because of despondancy over the untimely death of his daughter. As an old man, he said that he had never been an Atheist, but considered himself an Agnostic. Schools don’t teach "Darwinism," they teach science. The notion that "Creationism" is science is absurd, it’s the myth of the Torah – nothing to do with Science, nothing to do with Christ. But as to Coulter’s point, liberalism, Darwinism, Atheism, Science-ism are not synonyms. People of a liberal persuasion are not necessarily Atheists. Many are staunch Christians.

"People are born Gay"

Probably. But who cares? Some people are  homosexual, most of them very nice people. Whether they are born gay isn’t the point. The point is that they are born equal. They are endowed with certain inalienable rights, included among them Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Liberals like me think that they’re equal, because they are.

"child-molesters can be rehabilitated"

I don’t know many liberal people who say that. I sure don’t. Maybe they "can" but usually they aren’t interested. Where does Ann Coulter get the ideas that liberals think that? What’s fascinating to me is that she is obviously debunking the notion that child molesters can be rehabilitated, but she want gay people to get rehabilitated and be not gay. That’s nuts. Her "child-molester" "liberal" hook up is just hatemongering – not to be taken seriosly.

"recycling is a virtue"

I agree with her. I don’t like righteous recycling either. You go, girl!

"Chastity is not"

A cheap shot. She knows that the birth rate among liberals is low. If it’s genetic, we’re headed for extinction. I suspect that chastity is not even on the table for most liberals. It’s not a liberal thing to legislate or pontificate about the sexual life of others, except to note that intercourse can cause pregnancy, and intercourse with some people causes bad illnesses.

Which brings me to my point in writing this. Liberal does not mean a set of beliefs like she says it does. It means the opposite. If she wants to attack us, it would be helpful if she knew what we are. In so far as there is a code of political correctness, and in some cases she’s right about that, we should listen to her complaint and rethink out ideas. Some of us might, if fact, be closet Conservatives for all we know. Everything else she says is consistent with a paranoid personality that she might ought to spend some of her money getting looked into. To say she’s a Conspiracy Theorist is simply stating the obvious…