Posted on 02/20/2005 6:11:05 AM PST by SJackson
Weekends in New York can turn indigestible when politics dominate breakfast.
At an Upper West Side caf , my host greets me and my colleague, then orders a latte, the drink of choice for sophisticated young urban blue-state inhabitants. After an exchange of pleasantries, we both order the healthy choice.
Meet the Kerry-core: mid-30s, successful and glamorous, keeping in shape while meeting the demands of a successful professional life in the fast lane.
They keep up with the literary world on the metro and know which restaurant offers the newest version of California French-American fusion cuisine. No Hollywood movies for them: too commercial and superficial, the kind of culture that makes sophisticated Europeans loathe simpleton America for its shallowness. But they have seen the latest Broadway show and a Franco-Vietnamese film series playing in the nearby noncommercial movie theater.
My interlocutor is a thirtysomething TV journalist from a global network. With perfect nails, perfect hair and perfect command of her charm, she watches me eat my breakfast while her spoon hovers over her granola.
She could, no doubt, be a good professional contact. But my colleague spoils the moment by flagging my current affiliation (The American Enterprise Institute) and my sympathy for George W. Bush.
My colleague is a foreign correspondent for a European daily who eats eggs Benedict but thinks Michael Moore has "a lot to say": She is fine in New York. Me, I eat granola but cheer for Bush. It's worse than a crime; it's confusing to my host.
In her sophisticated understanding of the world, Ms. Latte thinks a PhD-holding, polyglot, granola-eating, urban-dwelling academic with spectacles from Europe (who, in addition, is Jewish) must be a liberal and must hate Bush. Anything different does not exist in her normative universe. It throws her off balance.
"You actually like Bush?" she says in disbelief. Here's a chance to exculpate myself. Instead, I gingerly respond, "I actually love Bush!"
With her lower lip trembling, my interlocutor goes for the jugular. "Bush is stupid. And whoever supports Bush is stupid." Which effectively makes this hopeful moment stillborn.
Not every breakfast must be with the like-minded, of course, but if all breakfasts were like this one, a swollen liver would be a distinct threat. Still, it offers useful anthropological insights on Democratic bitterness after the November defeat.
According to Ms. Latte, Bush is supported by duck-hunting, God-fearing rednecks who unreasonably hate foreigners and, religiously speaking, are still in the Middle Ages. Terrorism is a nuisance. Making it a top priority is a ruse to scare simpletons.
Why would I be on their side?
a) I am stupid.
b) I live in an ivory tower and am not aware of reality.
For help in revising my views, Ms. Latte advises that I drive down Route 66 and try to socialize with people I meet in rural post offices. I will inevitably discover their stupidity, their intolerance of foreigners and their religious fanaticism. And I will give up Bush.
Still, who your allies are is not always a good case for switching sides. After all, "campaigning" for Kerry were the MoveOn.Org crowd and Michael Moore. Toward the end, even Osama bin Laden advised Americans not to reelect Bush.
Ms. Latte feels comfortable in their company. I don't. I still prefer Christian fundamentalists to the Michael Moores, Gore Vidals and Noam Chomskys of the world. I might feel uncomfortable among duck hunters, but if they support this administration, let them shoot ducks. Foreign policy is what matters, not weekend hobbies or church prayers.
Ms. Latte decries Bush's failure to "promote dialogue and understanding" after 9/11: "War is not the answer!" she proclaims, explaining that Kerry, so much more sophisticated than those Midwest simpletons, paints the world in nuanced shades of gray, while Bush offers a black-and-white take on right and wrong. That's why he won: his supporters are as dumb as he is. They believe there is right and wrong in this world.
Which is why she lost her tranquillity in my presence. In her universe, someone like me is meant to be smart, not to support Bush.
These days a PhD is no guarantee of IQ. But unlike my sophisticated colleague, I know exactly how open to dialogue those who masterminded 9/11 are.
Bush did not start a war. He only chose not to surrender once that war started, because he could tell right from wrong. Ms Latte can't. She does not believe there's a truth out there. That's why her candidate lost.
Easier to call your opponents dumb for reelecting Bush than face the reasons Kerry lost. The November defeat becomes easier to digest.
Which I wish I could say of my breakfast. Next visit to New York, I'll wear a Kerry-Edwards T-shirt, go see the latest Franco-Vietnamese production, and most of all, avoid conversation.
The writer teaches Israel Studies at Oxford and is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Worth repeating, excellent observations.
Ooops! My mistake. In that case, I hope HE doesn't wear a Kerry shirt on his next trip to NYC...
Yes, and then they stand and stare at you as if they have just said something incredibly witty and devastating, and all of their friends at the table titter in apreciation. I live in Florida, not in NYC, and this happened to me in my own house because I happen to know a set of academics. To tell the truth, I was so stunned that people would be so rude that I didn't know what to say. Finally, I said that I thought they were rude and we should change the subject (which wasn't Bush, anyway - I can't remember how it came up).
A few days later, one of them sent an e-mail to my sister saying that she couldn't believe that my sister liked Bush, because she was "so intelligent." This was the tipping point; we wrote back and said that they were incredibly rude, and we couldn't believe they liked Kerry, because they were "so intelligent." All of them apologized, and we have been good friends ever since.
I honestly think these people live in such a bubble they don't realize how rude and aggressive they are, because everybody they know thinks exactly as they do, and says exactly the same horrible things they say. But sometimes if you call them on it, they get a grip and realize that they've gone over the line. That is, if they are of good will, but there are many who are not.
It's a process.
I WAS a liberal, and the process involves:
1-Defacto renunciation of one's American citizenship, becoming a "citizen of the world". Consequence: one is not only freed but prone to adopt several points of view at once.
2-Psychologically "connecting" to the liberal-left commune renders tremendous psychological rewards, this "warm fuzzy" is extremely intoxicating, your adopted ideology is constantly reinforced, eventually you can accept no other explanation than that you must be brilliant. Strength in numbers eventually obliterates one's individualism, members are not only soon unable to think for themselves, loss of membership is the penalty for doing so.
3-Narcisism, and the complete inability to see a particular point of view results in behavior steeped in delusion and characterized by constant projection. Note that according to liberals it's we conservatives who don't do "nuance", when it's actually our accusers who see things in strict black and white. We must be dumb or evil, to the narcissist, there can be no other explanation for our opposition to their beliefs.
Sometimes talking to a liberal is liking shooting fish in a barrel.
My humble suggestion to Emanuele is to eat like a pig. Then pretend to go the bathroom and duck out the back door; leaving Ms. Latte with the bill:):)
People that rude are NOT of good will.
I'll go beyond that. I have changed my attitude toward "friends" who would install communism in my country...friends who would put traitors in office...friends who undermine Americans fighting for their lives (and our security) overseas...
They are not my friends. I have made that kind of politics "personal" and do not associate with such anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-freedom, pro-terrorist and idotic trash poorly impersonating intelligent human beings.
If they want a complete division of this country to separate themselves from us, I say it cannot happen soon enough for me.
I am sick to death of them.
They are not my friends. I have made that kind of politics "personal" and do not associate with such anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-freedom, pro-terrorist and idotic trash poorly impersonating intelligent human beings.
This is precisely how I see it. Those who would see this country laid low in order to satisfy their own deep-driven self-hatred are unfit to live in this country. They are, in fact, unfit to live - period. If that seems extreme, then consider the consequences once such as these achieve the kind of absolute power that they crave. History teaches us some dark and brutal lessons in that regard, should we chose to see them.
They don't want a division of the country, BTW. What they want is for all of us who oppose their sick utopian fantasies of death, power and dominion over every aspect of human thought and endeavor to die. Again, history is my witness to that fact.
It's long past time that we started treating these monsters as the enemies of human freedom and didnity that they really are.
bttt
The leaders of the left think they are oh so smart, but they are a bunch of ignorant fools who don't understand the real world.
They are arrogant, and have nothing to be arrogant about.
I inevitably get the dumbfound, incredulous wail: "But, but... You're so SMART?! Then they narrow their eyes, searching for evidence of my clandestine psychotic break...
They hate the values we hold. They hate the way we think. They hate the way we have chosen to live our lives and raise our children.
The last time one of my younger brothers and I really talked about politics I came within an inch of removing his head from his shoulders when he called my service in the Marine Corps 'bulls***'.
He and I rarely speak at all anymore, even when we're in the same room at a family gathering.
We just figure that we'll do them one last favor and remove ourselves from their tiny, warped, frustrated, pointless little lives to the extent that it's possible.
I don't know who said that 'It's good to be hated by the right people', but I have to really, really try not to hate them right back. It's not that they're not deserving of it, oh they are alright.
I just figure that hatred is such a dangerous emotion that I can't really let it out of its box. Do you know what I mean? If I really just let it flow, I'm honestly afraid of what might happen.
As far as this article goes, anyone who really said to me 'anyone who supports Bush is stupid' would draw such a harsh laugh of derision from me that they would be stunned. I figure the best way to mock one of these overeducated, self important, self indulgent pinheads would be to laugh right in their face. I mean a good, long, hearty guffaw which would draw attention from every other diner in the joint.
Then I'd love to drop a mirror on the table if front of 'em as I dropped enough to cover my check and walked out.
Take care.
Check six.
L
Certainly, there are haters on the right but, my God, I would never have believed it had you told me what living here would be like.
Right after the election some compassionate leftist filed a human resources complaint against a co-worker of mine for - I sh!t you not - "Voting for Bush".....and I don't work at McDonalds....I'm talking a multi-million dollar, professional services company in the middle of the city.
If you say something they don't like, the lefties up here will sometimes flat-out yell at you. It's pretty bizarre.
I stopped talking politics some time ago.
Where's his eye protection?
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