Jonah Goldberg does not so much weigh in on an issue as he plops in on an issue. Let us apply the advanced fartology.
On paper, "liberal intolerance" is something of an oxymoron, like "jumbo shrimp," "loyal opposition" or "conspicuous absence."
Fuck off.
But what makes oxymorons funny is that they are real things.
Nothing makes these things funny. If you are yukking it up over "jumbo shrimp," fuck you, you're writing the ballad of a sad cliche. With laughter, Jonah thought the world would melt, but he just liked the way his finger smelt.
Last Friday, in a public radio interview, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered the sort of potted analysis of the national Republican Party one would expect from an MSNBC talk show. But he went a bit further. After nodding to the fact that, historically, the New York state Republican Party has been the most ideologically gelded of the breed (it is the birthplace of Rockefeller Republicanism, after all), Cuomo proclaimed that "extreme conservatives" have "no place in the state of New York."
Never mind the gibberish, this is all my bollocks. By "ideologically gelded" Goldberg presumably means that there used to be a Republican party capable of attracting voters in the Northeast, and now there isn't. Awww.
Cuomo is absolutely correct, though:
Who are extreme conservatives? People who are "right-to-life, pro-assault weapon, anti-gay."
Yeah. No down-the-line hardcore tea-bagger politician will ever win statewide or national office in New York.
It's an interesting -- and repugnant -- tautology: Extremists hold extreme views, and we can identify extreme views by the fact they are held by extremists.
By the standards of New York, these are extreme views. And fine!
By the standards of a cesspit like, say, Texas, what do those horrible zealot fuckers think of Texans who are pro-choice, pro-gun control, and pro-gay?
Imagine how much smoke would emanate from the liberal outrage machine if, say, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that "extremist" Democrats who support gun control or oppose gay marriage or abortion rights "have no place in the great state of Texas."
No, Jonah Goldberg is NOT edited. (Read that sentence again, holy shit.)
Also, Google.
Of course, liberal intolerance isn't rhetorical or limited to hot-button issues; it is woven into mainstream liberal policymaking. The Supreme Court is now pondering whether nuns -- celibate, elderly nuns -- have the right to opt out of Obamacare's birth-control requirements.
This is drool, even for Goldberg. Nobody is trying to force nuns to take birth control pills.
And it's not just policymaking either. Liberalism has a culture all its own. From cities like New York; Madison, Wis.; and San Francisco to countless college campuses in between, that culture can produce people as judgmental as the old Church Lady character from "Saturday Night Live." They'll be judgmental about different things, to be sure, but every bit as intolerant.
The fucking "Church Lady." Heading towards the half century with the cultural references.
Well, anyway, yes. In our culture, gays can get married, don't wander around with your boom-sticks like an asshole, and women have rights as regards their bodies.
Given that Andrew Cuomo is basically a center-right neoliberal autoritarian fuckstick, we can at least take these other three things, dammit.