This week's column is brought to you by the word "a--holes." It's one of the left's favorite words these days, fond as they are of shutting down the debate and casting their political opponents out like lepers.
Take, for example, the website Gawker. The website is liberal. And as liberal Obama backers, they feel the necessity not only to support the Obama agenda, but also silence those on the other side through bully tactics. Hence their decision this week to publish a full list of all the registered gun owners in New York City. The title of their big reveal: "Here Is a List of All The A--holes Who Own Guns in New York City." That's an inaccurate title, of course -- the worst people who own guns in New York City likely own them illegally. But it fits with the leftist conceit that those who disagree on gun policy are just bad people.
It's not just gun owners who are "a--holes" according to the left. This week, restaurant chain Wendy's announced that they would have to cut back worker hours in order to preserve their employment thanks to additional costs imposed by Obamacare. This, of course, is basic economics -- when you impose additional costs on a business, they have to cut back. But to the left, reality is a mere inconvenience. If you experience additional costs from the vaunted Obamacare program, you're supposed to lift your chin and soldier on, even if it means bankruptcy.
And so ultra-thug Dan Savage tweeted, "A--holes: Wendy's Cuts Employee hrs. to Part-Time 2 Avoid Obamacare." Savage is, amazingly enough, one of President Obama's anti-bullying czars -- he runs the It Gets Better Project, which is closely associated with the White House. He also bullies conservatives routinely. When Chick-Fil-A's ownership turned out to be pro-traditional marriage, Savage tried to redefine Chick-Fil-A to mean a graphically perverse sexual act; he did the same with Rick Warren's Saddleback Church after Warren expressed his opposition to same-sex marriage; he did the same with Rick Santorum's name after Santorum had the gall to speak out for traditional notions of heterosexual marriage. Savage has also berated Christian students for walking out on one of his anti-Christian screeds and suggested that politicians with whom he disagrees should be murdered.
Savage wasn't the only one taking on Wendy's for failing to magically exempt itself from the laws of economics. Potty-mouth comedienne Sarah Silverman tweeted, "What lame period faces." And Nathan Fillion's of "Firefly" fame wrote, "I just boycotted Wendy's. And broke up with Wendy. Via tweet."
Leave aside the fact that the leftist solution to Wendy's cutting back hours is to cut their profit margin even further, forcing them to fire people. Focus instead on the morality play leftists shoehorn into the Wendy's scenario: greedy corporation wants to avoid helping people get health care, and so cuts back their hours. Again, the leftist position rests on the thuggish notion that those on the other side are morally inferior to them.
The truth is that the left is morally inferior when it plays these games. Instead of looking for actual solutions to problems of crime and murder and bankruptcy, leftists prefer to grandstand. It makes them feel good to label those who oppose their agenda "a--holes," even if it doesn't save lives. It makes them feel good to rip Wendy's rather than Obamacare, because you don't win points for backing business -- but you do win points for slandering business in the name of the collective.
The left has become a collection of bullies, knee-jerk moralists without the morality. They aren't interested in the best policy. They're just interested in the glow they feel when they self-perceive as having defended a "victimized group." Too bad the only real victims are those who end up on the short end of their insulting cretinism.
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