Today's Dose of Leftist Intolerance

Please read this whole post from DU.

"I had a free movie pass and the kids wanted to see "Aliens of the Deep" in IMAX (a B+, by the way) , so we hopped into the old Ford Escort and began the 39-mile drive from San Francisco to the apparently all-brand-new bedroom community of Dublin. We got to the exit, Hacienda drive, and I didn't have to look for the theater because I could see the hulking structure with "Regal Cinemas" written on it from across the freeway.

Upon reaching the parking lot, I was taken aback by the fact that the parking lot for this theater in an outdoor shopping complex was HUGE. Several football fields, filled almost entirely with late-model SUVs. I finally found a spot to tuck my little car in between all the behemoths, and we started to go in. It was an uneventful day at the movies, but somehow, I felt so out of place here - all the clothes seemed so... trendy. All the mens' and boys' haircuts were so identical and short. We got inside and clutching my bag brought from home with drinks and little bags of cheetos (total cost = $2.75), I passed by the long lines of people queued up to by $4.95 popcorns and 3.95 buckets o' soda, and then we waited for the movie - first ones there, so we got great seats, and the movie was very cool - IN 3-D!

So, you ask, did my "no W" button cause some freeper encounter, or was my "Bush-beneath contempt" sticker scraped off while we were in the theater? Nope, no confrontation whatsoever. In fact I'm sure that most of the people out there were basically decent folks.

But being out there, in that little stucco island of cinema in that sea of SUV's, next to the OldNavyBurlingtonCoatFactory, with the Macaroni Grill and Olive Garden islands nearby, made me feel how acutely out of touch I am personally with the prevalent values of white middle class people in this country.

I saw around me people whose apparent primary function is to consume, consume, consume, and they seemed to do it dutifully. Later, they would go home to their brand-new McMansions so that the next morning, moms could put Lunchables and CapriSun in sons' bags, and drive them to school in the SUV. Homes out here (and anywhere in the bay area) cost a fortune. How the HELL do all these people afford $600K mortgages AND SUV's AND the weekly consumption ritual? I just don't get it...

And we headed back to the beautiful city of San Francisco, where everything is NOT new, or sanitary, and the people most certainly do not all look alike. Back to our little 2-bedroom MIL apartment, where we felt comfortable, and not so embarrassed at being unable to afford the binge of consumption all the others around us had been engaging in.

And now my wife is taking the kids to school - one, to the wonderful old converted gymnasium that serves as our son's daycare - they teach in English and Japanese, and the children there are from all walks of life.

The other goes to a great bilingual elementary school, again the focus being on Japanese.

I'm so happy for them that they are growing up here, where they won't be trained from day one to just eat burgers and fries and sugar-water - SF schools have banned it, and are now serving teriyaki chicken bowls and the like in the school lunches - and they can hopefully learn to be something more than just dutiful consumers.

I love the Bay Area - suburbs and all. I have no idea whether Dublin leans blue or red, but it is remarkable that the shopping complex we visited looked EXACTLY like the suburban shopping complexes we used to occasionally visit in Miami, which looked EXACTLY like the ones popping up in my hometown of El Paso. I'm not even trying to rail against it - I guess it's just a fact of life today, but I do find it remarkable that so many people still choose a lifestyle where everything seems so corporate and artificial.

I'm obviously not a writer, so I don't have a nice little bow to tie up this little bunch of observations - it was just another day when we happened to venture out a bit further from the city than we normally do. If Dublin is any indication, America's economic engine is still humming - at least for some people."

This rant exemplifies everything that those on the left cannot see about themsleves. Condescending, mean, ugly, and assuming.

First of all, why did the writer expect to be harrassed about his bumper sticker? At school last trimester, I got heckled or stared at while driving into the parking lot with my Bush/Cheney sticker at least once a week. My ethics professor said it "offended"her. I never said a word about being bombarded with gay/lesbian/animal rights/diversity literature on EVERY WALL in the school. One day out of curiosity, while driving in, I counted the ratio of Bush/Cheney stickers to Kerry/Edwards stickers in the parking lot. The ratio was 1 (mine) to 24. I figure, "live and let live." Can you say "projection?" When you yourself are intolerant of others, you will assume they are of you. Why else would he be surprised that nobody paid attention to his bumper sticker?

And maybe these people can afford 600K mortgages because they have jobs that pay enough. Maybe they won the lottery. Maybe they found it under a rock. So what? Why are you so worried about it?

Here is one of the most telling lines: "I felt so out of place here--all the clothes seemed so...trendy. All the men's and boys' haircuts were so identical and short." Place that shoe on the other foot. If A suburbanite went to the city and pointed out that everyone looked the same to them, wouldn't they be called bigoted? These people remind me of the "cool kids" in high school, exept they graduated years ago. Get over your "I like art and cool stuff like bilingual Japanese schools and old buildings and you can't even understand what it is like being this bitchen" self.

Why do those on the left have so much unmasked contempt for the way others live and call everyone else intolerant? I'm just asking.