The Left's Culture of Hate

From Dennis Prager, at FrontPage Magazine:

I recently wrote about leftists’ hatred for conservatives as people, not merely for conservative ideas. Demonization of opponents is a fundamental characteristic of the left. It is not merely tactical; they believe people on the right are bad. (Here’s a test: Ask someone on the left if active support of California Proposition 8 — retaining the man-woman definition of marriage — was an act of hate.)

A related defining characteristic of the left is the ascribing of nefarious motives to conservatives. For the left, a dismissal of conservatives’ motives is as important as is dismissal of the conservatives as people. It is close to impossible for almost anyone on the left — and I mean the elite left, not merely left-wing blogs — to say “There are good people on both of sides of this issue.” From Karl Marx to Frank Rich of The New York Times, this has always been the case.

In the left’s worldview, conservative opponents of affirmative action cannot be driven by concern for blacks — opposition is animated by racists; conservative opponents of illegal immigration are animated by racism and xenophobia; opposition to abortion is a function of sexism; President Bush went to war for oil and American imperialism; and conservative supporters of retaining man-woman marriage hate gays.

This is not true of elite conservatives. Leading conservative columnists, leading Republicans, etc., rarely depict liberals as motivated by evil. Conservatives can say “There are good people on both sides of the issue” because we actually believe it.

More at the link.

And I might add that while "liberals" may indeed be good people, I can't say the same about leftists. They simply aren't good, so always make that distinction when speaking about folks who may be Democrat and liberal and folks who may be Democrat and leftist. The latter are enemies, and I mean that will all of my being. And unfortunately, there aren't that many true liberals around on the left any more, so we've got our work cut out for us.