On Common Sense, Political Correctness and Intolerance

Conservatives like to point out that liberals lack common sense.

There's good reason for that. The fact is when it comes to common sense, at least in the political sphere, it is most often wrong. Common sense kept blacks "in their place" for decades. It was common sense a "woman's place was in the home." Common sense held "a loss in Vietnam would domino all of Southeast Asia to the Communists" and "Saddam had weapons of mass destruction." It has been common sense homosexuals should be shunned -- until Americans discovered one was their daughter.

People's common sense tells them to reject change. It took them years to accept short pants for men, the designated hitter, "Ms.," imported pickup trucks, men's jewelry, interracial marriage, tattoos on women, bilingual signage and cell phones. People detest change; especially consequential change.

Glenn Beck may want to lay claim to Martin Luther King's legacy now but where were conservatives on the Mall then when King's dream of racial equality was still controversial? No where in sight!

At every step in western civilization's progress toward a more humane, just and rationale society, reactionary ankle biters have fought a rear guard holding action. If it weren't for progressive thinking we'd still be living in the Middle Ages when common sense held mental retardation was God's punishment, kings were divine and the earth was the center of the universe.

Conservatives also disparage liberals as being politically correct and having no sense of humor when they object to mean-spirited jokes, sniggers, eye rolls and cute code words sullying gays, women, minorities, immigrants and others. That's because all too many cons have convinced themselves they aren't really bigots and their repartee is simply good natured humor and free speech, ala Laura Schlessinger. Here's a rule. If you'd be embarrassed to repeat your comments in front of the subject's mother, you're a bigot.

Similarly, conservatives accuse liberals of intolerance because they refuse to allow intelligent design, essentially the creationism pig with lipstick, to be taught along side evolution in the schools. But is a person intolerant who refuses to give equal credence to astrologers and astrophysicists? alchemists and inorganic chemists? sorcerers and physicians?

Is it intolerant to refuse to equate literal interpretations of Bible myths implying the earth is 6000 years old with peer-reviewed, replicable scientific theories advanced by the overwhelming majority of cosmologists, geologists and paleontologists?

So yeah, liberals are disdainful of so-called common sense solutions and intolerant of language, behavior and ideas that are insulting, inappropriate or just plain inane. They, as opposed to conservatives, are burdened with the historical perspective that at some point in the future those things will be universally rejected as wrong headed. And that it shouldn't take 47 years.