SHOCKINGLY, KIRSTEN POWERS OMITS A FEW FACTS

It's a day ending in "-day," so pseudo-Democrat and professional concern troll Kirsten Powers is denouncing liberals for intolerance again, this time in USA Today:

Welcome to the Dark Ages, Part II. We have slipped into an age of un-enlightenment where you fall in line behind the mob or face the consequences.

How ironic that the persecutors this time around are the so-called intellectuals. They claim to be liberal while behaving as anything but. The touchstone of liberalism is tolerance of differing ideas. Yet this mob exists to enforce conformity of thought and to delegitimize any dissent from its sanctioned worldview. Intolerance is its calling card.

Each week seems to bring another incident. Last week it was David and Jason Benham, whose pending HGTV show was canceled after the mob unearthed old remarks the brothers made about their Christian beliefs on homosexuality. People can't have a house-flipping show unless they believe and say the "right" things in their life off the set?

First of all, I love the reference to "old remarks," as if these were comments from the distant past that no longer reflect the brothers' beliefs. The remarks were from ... 2012. And when they were brought to light, the brothers -- or at least David Benham, who is the real ideological combatant of the two -- went on a right-wing media tour and said that, hell yes, he stands by those "old remarks."

Oh, and David Benham's "Christian beliefs on homosexuality" include the belief that homosexuality is analogous to Nazism. He's not very fond of Muslims, either, or particularly tolerant himself, if you're pro-choice.
Right Wing Watch quoted this 2012 blog post by David Benham:

... if evil is being accepted and appreciated at the national level, aggressive Christian men must lead the charge against it. In the late 1940's England realized this truth with Neville Chamberlain's Policy of Appeasement and the Nazi regime. Chamberlain thought he could somehow "appease" the fuehrer, yet Winston Churchill aggressively stood against this policy and proclaimed that they must kill Hitler and destroy the regime in its entirety. It wasn't long before Chamberlain's "politically correct" policy fell flat on its face, and Churchill -- the more aggressive man -- took the reins and joined America in defeating the beast called, Naziism [sic].

Also:

David also leads protests outside of abortion clinics where he praises demonstrators for taking a stand at "the gates of hell" and confronting the "altars of Moloch."

And Right Watch Watch refers us to this report by the ADL (yes, the ADL is part of the "liberal mob"):

David Benham, Flip Benham's son and an OSA spokesman, called the [proposed Park51] Islamic center [in lower Manhattan] a "den of iniquity," and referred to Muslims as "the enemy attacking" America. Benham, portraying the United States as a Christian nation, also drew this distinction: "The difference between Islam and Christianity: Islam takes life and enslaves it. Christianity lays its life down and sets you free." The day prior to the demonstration, OSA released a statement asserting that seeks to convert Muslims who are "enslaved in the tyrannical bondage of Islam" to Christianity.

Benham has defended his remarks in the right-wing media since they were revealed, asserting that his anti-gay sentiments are merely his attempt to fight "the evil that's enslaving people," which, as the brothers assert, is the work of Satan.

But liberals who have a problem with all this are the intolerant ones.

*****

Powers goes on to offer a rather selective reading of the worldview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose honorary degree from Brandeis has been withdrawn:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is persona non grata at Brandeis University for attacking the prophet Mohammed. But Richard Dawkins describes the Old Testament God as "a misogynistic ... sadomasochistic ... malevolent bully" and the mob yawns. Bill Maher calls the same God a "psychotic mass murderer" and there are no boycott demands of the high-profile liberals who traffic his HBO show.

Well, of course, there are quite a few folks out there who've called for a boycott of Bill Maher -- but they're not liberals, so, to Powers, they can't be intolerant.

But let's go back to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Were progressives at Brandeis upset because she "attack[s] the prophet Mohammed"? No. They're upset because she calls for a war with Islam -- all of it:

David Cohen quotes Ms. Hirsi Ali as saying: "Violence is inherent in Islam -- it's a destructive, nihilistic cult of death. It legitimates murder. The police may foil plots and freeze bank accounts in the short term, but the battle against terrorism will ultimately be lost unless we realise that it's not just with extremist elements within Islam, but the ideology of Islam itself....Islam is the new fascism" (London Evening Standard, 2-7-07).... Van Bakel notes religions' ability to bring about change for good: "Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?" Ms. Hirsi Ali responds, "Only if Islam is defeated." Van Bakel asks, "Don't you mean defeating radical Islam?" To that she responds, "No. Islam, period." (Reason, 11-07)

Every Muslim on earth is the enemy -- but to Powers, if you have a problem with that viewpoint, you're intolerant.

*****

One final Powers quote:

In March, University of California-Santa Barbara women's studies professor Mireille Miller-Young attacked a 16-year-old holding an anti-abortion sign in the campus' "free speech zone" (formerly known as America). Though she was charged with theft, battery and vandalism, Miller-Young remains unrepentant and still has her job.

Odd that Powers would somehow neglect to mention that the "anti-abortion sign" in question was a large, graphic photograph of an aborted fetus, clearly designed to provoke. That doesn't justify Professor Miller-Young's decision to walk off with the poster -- but she is up on charges. Is everyone who responds in a similar way to graphic aborted-fetus pictures a thuggish fascist? Facebook banned ex-Saturday Night Live star Victoria Jackson for posting a similar picture. TV stations are required to air political ads featuring aborted fetuses if they're from legitimate candidates for office, but if not, the ads can be blocked. Is that intolerance, too?

Y'know, if I didn't know better, I'd think Kirsten Powers was deliberately omitting this information in order to make the moral balance seem one-sided. Oh, but she wouldn't really do that, would she?