To answer your last question first, it's more disappointing when one side fails of (what's perceived as) its own ideals. Toleration of diverse opinions was practically a catechism of liberal American politics, at least back before it called itself progressive. (That's certainly what I thought I was supposed to be learning when they taught me about the blacklist and loyalty oaths and endless YA stories about people being ostracized for being different, and how that was a bad thing.) If it only matters when it's your side getting it in the neck, it's not a principle, it's a tactic.
(Obviously it is for some people-- the history of sympathetic underdogs pleading for tolerance demanding orthodoxy when in power is long and unedifying. Obviously you think that's the case here among some or all of the signatories. All I can say for my own part is that I think I'm sincere. And I've certainly voted with my feet to always live and work where I'm out of step politically, which I probably wouldn't do if I hoped eventually to be able to enforce like-mindedness.)
I have the same reaction when Republican administrations crush federalism in favor of a pet cause, or blow off the deficit in favor of adding a big new entitlement. "I expect that from the other guys, but you?" In addition to feeling like a betrayal, it engenders hopelessness: where is there to look for relief if the side who owns that cause doesn't care about it?
So for the general case. For the specific, it's because it's the case I saw. Probably because it showed up first in tech feeds rather than politics. If you have other examples, I can tell you if I've ever heard of them.
It was also vanishingly rare in matching my principles, which neither the daily outrages I filter from the left side of my social networking nor the (much rarer, just because of who I happen to know and be connected to) culture war memes for the right tend to do. Someone who believes in diversity of opinion that should be tolerated beyond what the law requires by a private mesh of principle and custom that isn't, can't, and shouldn't be legislated (let alone brought to heel by the judiciary), and that people should be able to marry the folks they actually love? If I've been neglecting whole bunch of other petitions or posts along those lines, please let me know.
(That's meant seriously and without irony. I'd love to have more than two political blogs that I can read without wanting to toss them across the room. Or to be able to get through an election year without suppressing half the posts in my Facebook feed from both parties to keep from getting tempted to respond.)
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2014-04-29 02:24 am (UTC)(Obviously it is for some people-- the history of sympathetic underdogs pleading for tolerance demanding orthodoxy when in power is long and unedifying. Obviously you think that's the case here among some or all of the signatories. All I can say for my own part is that I think I'm sincere. And I've certainly voted with my feet to always live and work where I'm out of step politically, which I probably wouldn't do if I hoped eventually to be able to enforce like-mindedness.)
I have the same reaction when Republican administrations crush federalism in favor of a pet cause, or blow off the deficit in favor of adding a big new entitlement. "I expect that from the other guys, but you?" In addition to feeling like a betrayal, it engenders hopelessness: where is there to look for relief if the side who owns that cause doesn't care about it?
So for the general case. For the specific, it's because it's the case I saw. Probably because it showed up first in tech feeds rather than politics. If you have other examples, I can tell you if I've ever heard of them.
It was also vanishingly rare in matching my principles, which neither the daily outrages I filter from the left side of my social networking nor the (much rarer, just because of who I happen to know and be connected to) culture war memes for the right tend to do. Someone who believes in diversity of opinion that should be tolerated beyond what the law requires by a private mesh of principle and custom that isn't, can't, and shouldn't be legislated (let alone brought to heel by the judiciary), and that people should be able to marry the folks they actually love? If I've been neglecting whole bunch of other petitions or posts along those lines, please let me know.
(That's meant seriously and without irony. I'd love to have more than two political blogs that I can read without wanting to toss them across the room. Or to be able to get through an election year without suppressing half the posts in my Facebook feed from both parties to keep from getting tempted to respond.)