The Gods of the Copybook Headings

[Content note: this post is aimed at liberals who follow US politics.]

Because intentions govern their policies, liberals show no interest in looking at evidence. Their denial and disregard of evidence is another reflection of their dislike of reality. Evidence is about reality; intentions are about fantasizing and self-indulgence.

-Spectator.org, The Liberals’ Reality Problem

In a time when the Republican POTUS is a guy who claims the streets of New Jersey were filled with cheering Muslims on 9/11 and global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, it’s important to remember that most conservatives don’t hate science or reject the concept of objective truth.

In fact, most conservatives feel the exact same way about you.

They see people claiming biological sex doesn’t exist. They see people openly advocating  genocide, and other people blindly refusing to admit this. They see liberals sharing conspiracy theories and hoaxes and “fake news” that support their worldview, ignoring any debunking, and quietly moving on to the next fake scandal. They see – or at least hear about – obviously rigged studies from the social sciences, and they see climatologists and sexologists and ecologists who openly state that their goal is to manufacture evidence of their political views, and they see scientists who disagree with the liberal consensus ridiculed and denigrated.

They see liberals openly attacking  conservatives for offering “alternative facts”. Imagine that, folks! They admit they don’t want you to see the facts unless they’re their facts, packaged and spun the way the media likes it!

And, of course, they see liberals advocating a bunch of stupid policies that ruin the economy and get people killed – in the face of all the evidence – and when challenged, responding with emotional anecdotes and bad arguments.

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Yes, there are totally innocent explanations for all those things.

That’s not the point.

When Donald Trump makes what is – to them – obviously a harmless locker-room joke, and see liberals accusing him of rape, they feel exactly the same way you do when alt-righters seize on someone complaining about “white people” and proclaim them a genocidal racist. Because things Donald Trump says are deserving of charity, there’s no reason to think he’s not a decent guy, whereas some SJW is obviously evil and this is proof.

My point is not that liberals and conservatives are “equally right” or just as bad as each other.

My point is that both sides are equally human, and “my beliefs are objective truth and the other side just hate facts” is a natural human response to political disagreement, not necessarily a sign that you’re omniscient.