Left 'No Longer Content with Toleration'
By: John Hirschauer
The secular progressive left has no place within for tolerance. They are the most intolerant faction within American political thought and politics. They defy the founding fathers ideals of tolerance for a diversity of thought and opinion on matters of economics, politics, and religion.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) spoke with Terry Schilling, President of the American Principles Project (APP), on Monday about the Biden administration’s agenda and the potential impact of pending legislation on American families.
Cotton began the conversation by suggesting that the progressive movement was no longer interested in promoting tolerance and had embraced a more muscular posture in the culture war.
“I look around the country and I see a move over the years away from what used to be a defining American trait, which is toleration. Our founding fathers talked about the toleration for the views of others, especially for different religious creeds. But the Left is no longer content with toleration, by any means. They’re really not even content with acceptance. They want to demand celebration [of] their views about gender and race. They want to force them on the entire country,” Cotton said.
Cotton then discussed the mounting backlash to the efforts of activists, teachers, and school boards to install critical race theory (CRT) and other progressive ideologies in school curricula. He saluted the “courageous parents” who he said have been “standing up and fighting back” against the institution of critical theory in schools.
Schilling turned the conversation to perceived legislative threats to the family. He asked Cotton about the Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protections for members of various sexual-identity groups and override key provisions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
“Not surprisingly, as is often the case with Democratic legislation, the Equality Act doesn't quite live up to its title,” Cotton said. “It would make unequal policies the law of the land, especially when it comes to protecting young girls and young women in sports or in their schools and colleges and so forth. It is far reaching – far beyond anything the Democrats have proposed in the past and it's really just of a piece with the radical gender ideology that the left has been trying to indoctrinate.”
The Equality Act contains several provisions that have alarmed religious-freedom activists. For example, the Act would designate healthcare providers as public accommodations and prohibit those providers from treating “pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition” less favorably “than other physical conditions.” Mary Beth Waddell, the Director of Federal Affairs at the Family Research Council, argued that this provision “would effectively create a legislative right to abortion on demand.”
Cotton suggested that the bill as drafted contains provisions that would undermine parental and conscience rights, particularly around issues of gender-identity. He argued that the Equality Act and laws like it around the country ignore essential differences between the sexes.
“There’s a reason why we have men’s and women’s sports in the Olympics. Some of us are old enough to remember in the 1988 Summer Olympics where the late, great Florence Griffith Joyner set the women’s world record in the 100-meter dash. It still stands to this day in a sport where records fall almost every year. Thirty-three year’s later, [Joyner’s] record still stands. No woman has ever run faster,” Cotton said. “You know who has run faster than [Joyner]? Seventy-six high-school boys in America in the last track season. That’s an indication of just how different the sexes are when it comes to physical and athletic competitions.”
Cotton mentioned the possibility that the Senate could vote on the Equality Act as early as this week, though thus far there has been no movement on the bill in Congress’s upper chamber. President Biden reportedly met with the leaders of various sexual-identity groups on Monday, leading some to speculate that the White House is interested in making the legislation a priority.
Schilling implored the conference’s virtual attendees to call their elected officials and express opposition to the Equality Act. He then asked Cotton what could be done to counteract corporate activism, particularly in the wake of corporate-led boycotts of states that pass conservative legislation.
Cotton argued that corporate activism is spearheaded by corporate executives rather than rank-and-file employees, many of whom, Cotton suggested, oppose the political positions of the executives. He opposed boycotting such corporations for that reason.
Cotton added that conservative activists should attempt to match the effort and intensity of their progressive peers.
CEOs largely want to avoid controversy. They fear controversy coming from their left. Well, maybe they should fear it coming from their right, as well. If they're worried about a small number of online activists condemning them if they don't speak out on things like the Equality Act or that Georgia election law, maybe they should fear an online conservative outpouring of criticism if they do,” he said.
Schilling said that the APP has “some plans in the works to hold these corporations accountable for attacking our families,” and said there is a “whole list of corporations” his organization is “going to be going after in the coming weeks.” He then shifted the conversation to the rise of critical race theory and Cotton’s legislative efforts to combat the implementation of CRT in schools.
Cotton mentioned his bill that would prohibit federal funding of schools that teach the New York Times ’s “1619 Project.” He added that there was additional legislation “coming down the pike” to ensure that CRT is not taught to federal employees, and mentioned his joint effort with Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) to create a resource for military whistleblowers to “expose how rapidly the military has bought in to critical race theory.”
Cotton recalled a black Arkansan whom he met in a grocery store who expressed her support for “conservative family values” as an example of the importance of “look[ing] past outward differences.”
Schilling argued that some progressives are beholden to “the Confederate mentality” according to which “there are inferior races, and there are people with privilege or supremacy.” Cotton responded by highlighting Ibram Kendi’s argument that the “only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination” as evidence that certain professed anti-racists can sound like the racists they claim to abhor.
Schilling closed the conversation by asking Cotton about the greatest threat posed by the Biden administration. Cotton responded by arguing that President Biden’s economic policies, while regrettable from a conservative point of view, are less detrimental to the country than his administration’s cultural agenda.
“Look, I don’t want the Biden administration to raise taxes on Americans,” Cotton said. “I don’t want them to hurt our economic recovery. But if they do raise taxes, well, we can cut your taxes when we get back in office. There [are] lots of things that we can do when we take back power in the future, which I hope won’t be very far away. But if we allow Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to indoctrinate an entire generation of our kids earlier in these radical race and gender theories – especially indoctrinate them to hate America – what does it matter if we win a couple elections over the next few election cycles?”
John Hirschauer is a staff writer for RealClearFoundation.
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Some satire, or are you against that also?
Opinion: I oppose indoctrination, which is why I want schools to prove they are thinking acceptable things.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/25/desantis-critical-race-theory-florida-indoctrination/?utm_campaign=wp_follow_alexandra_petri&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_alexandrapetri
Complaints of intolerance is rich coming from right wing conservative Christians. They want everyone to be tolerant of their intolerance towards the lgtbq community, women and minorities and claim reverse discrimination if anyone dares boycott they or their businesses that continue to refuse service to gay couples. They bitch and moan about their religious rights being stripped away when they're the ones choosing to discriminate against others who they obviously don't give two shits about.
Conservatives whine and complain about transgender athletes but they don't have a dog in that fight, it's just another excuse for them to hear their own whiny voices.
The solution is simple, treat others the way you'd like to be treated. That's it. If you're a religious zealot who can't manage that then you don't deserve to be treated any differently than how you treat members of the lgtbq community. No one should be forced to tolerate intolerance.
[r][emoved]
One would think they of all people would understand: "Do unto others ..." It just continues to prove their hypocrisy.
Their God will be kind to them in the afterlife. Me, I'll just get another time on the Wheel to figure it out. Blessed Be
Good, as it should be.
With all due respect to the Founding Fathers, most of whom did the best they could within the society they lived in, it is no longer appropriate to base all our attitudes and actions in the 21st century on what the Founding Fathers would think or do.
I dont have a lot of interest in "tolerating" RWNJ, my interest is in having them acknowledge their mistakes and change.
I read today that Charlie Kirk, a young RWNJ, is proposing a conspiracy theory that the Miami condo building was brought down by "domestic terrorists". One assumes he means antifa or Black Lives Matter. We don't have to "tolerate" this crap from the right and we shouldn't, and I dont care what Thomas Jefferson thinks about it.
That’s where I am at, the founders were visionary in their time and did a damn fine job IMO. But they were not omniscient or infallible and the world/society has changed A LOT since they were alive. Frankly we should not be making decisions today based on what we think some dudes who have been dead for centuries would have thought.
The "secular left" are tolerant of every race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, faith and those without any specified religion. The only thing they won't tolerate are those who are intolerant of any of the aforementioned. Claiming they're "the most intolerant faction" is just beyond ignorant, it's blatant stupidity.
Lol...Watch the progressives here start with the racial slurs as soon as Tim Scott, Clarence Thomas or any other black person who doesn't conform to how liberal whites demand "real" black people act is brought up.
Bring them up all you want. I may disagree with them and insult the shit of them depending, but it has nothing to do with them being black.
There's about 5 or 6 here who are more than happy to make it racial.
And no progressive ever criticizes the comments..
If we didnt have knee jerk right wingers who are certain that a Tim Scott or Clarence Thomas is proof that racism is overblown then we most likely wouldnt see as much dismissal of those individuals from the left.
What I find most interesting is that the conservative right dismiss the millions of black Americans who are telling them that systemic racism exists, that they have been suffering, that they are angry about the fact they have to have "the talk" with their kids, that monuments to confederates that tried to keep their ancestors enslaved are symbols of hate and division, that black lives do matter, all because of a handful of black Americans have decided that believing conservative lies about just sitting down, shutting up and not complaining about the systemic racism they know exists will somehow be the best way to move past it. Just because a few black Americans have accepted the right wing conservative rule of "don't talk about white club" because they've been told if they don't talk about white club they get to be part of the club, it doesn't fix anything for the millions of other black Americans who live with the legacy and long lasting effects of systemic racism every day. For every Tim Scott or Clarence Thomas there are tens of thousands of black Americans that have to deal with the vestiges of white supremacy and the right wing machine that rejects their basic plea that black lives matter too and they are unwilling to just stay silent any longer. You can either choose to support the voices of millions of black Americans or comfort yourself in the voices of a few that are willing to tickle the ears of bigots and white supremacists all for a few scraps from their table. And it's not that those few voices shouldn't be heard, they should, and their message weighed and measured, but they certainly shouldn't drown out the cacophony of other black voices that are crying out for equality.
If black lives matter, why aren't they trying to do anything about the black gangs running around their neighborhoods shooting and killing each other as well as killing innocent children and others ? I guess eight year old little girls lives don't matter.
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thanks for the laugh.
I live on the real world. What is the color of the sky on your planet?
Look at all the “tolerant” posts from the left, lol. They are proving this article correct and don’t even realize it.
I am not interested in tolerating right wing nut jobs. They need to change their ways.
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I would rather be a right wing but job than a liberal with no nuts and no job!
JR referred only to the 'nut jobs' of the right wing; not all right wingers.
Since you are speaking for the 'nut jobs', I tend to think you are correct that they will not change.
No worries, ya got that down.
It would probably be a good idea if you checked your comment before hitting ''post'' when you're trying to insult someone. It would have saved you from being a ''but job''....
I wonder if rightwing butt jobs pay very well...
Yeah, it's under the table, lol.
Voters are sick and tired of the lying gop of Trump.
A lower case party, not like traditional Republicans.
An upper case GOP that devolved unto today's gop.