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{"id":34918,"date":"2012-04-24T00:37:51","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T07:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=34918"},"modified":"2014-12-30T17:43:26","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T00:43:26","slug":"the-lefts-righteous-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/04\/the-lefts-righteous-mind.html","title":{"rendered":"The Left’s Righteous Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Interesting study that belies the conviction of so many Lefties about their open-mindedness\u2013conducted by an honest Lefty.<\/a><\/p>\n

It certainly comports with my experience here in ultra-violet Blue Seattle. I suspect there are Mississippi Klansmen more open to new ideas and the blandishments of reality than some of the Lefties I\u2019ve worked with at the University of Washington. I remember one woman handing me a book catalog full of stuff like the Federalist Papers and the writings of the Founding Fathers and her sole concern was not the actual content of the books, but simply whether or not the publisher was \u201cconservative\u201d. She had an absolutely primitive and visceral fear of contracting ritual impurity if The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin was purchased from a publisher with the wrong tribal allegiances.<\/p>\n

What concerns me is these days is how often I am seeing representatives of the Thing that Used to be Conservativism emulating that poisonous Identity Politics. Sufficient sanity remains in the conservative worldview to act as an anti-viral agent against it. But it bothers me that not a few conservatives are indulging in it. Still, as a general rule, it remains the Left that, for all its embrace of secularism and scorn of all sincere religious belief as \u201cfundamentalist intolerance\u201d, is the home to the most rigidly intolerant personalities, as well as those heirs of Puritanism most impelled by their serene sense of rectitude to fix\u2013by force\u2013those of us who do not subscribe to the True Faith (in abortion, homosexuality, contraception, etc.).<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, in the land of apostate puritans that used to be England, they are trying to force churches to marry gays<\/a>, while here in the US, the Righteous Left pledges to force the Church to perform abortions<\/a>. When you are part of the Elect of the Zeitgeist, you receive irresistible grace to make war on the totally depraved, and because you are predestined to win, you can use any means necessary to achieve your ends. The real heart and soul of Calvin beats, not in Evangelical churches, but in the post- (and anti-) Christian Left.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"