Of Tolerance And Dissent

I've listened to many Democrats over the last several years whine and complain about how George Bush and the Republican party does not tolerate dissent. Sure, there are many in the GOP that are narrow-minded and think their way is always the right way, Sure, there are many that will rubber stamp whatever the Administration tells them. These people are clearly partisans and very few of them are capable of thinking for themselves.

But here's a story that shows the coin has two sides.

John Edwards criticized Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday for taking more than $20,000 in donations from News Corp. officials, arguing that the company's Fox News Channel has a right- wing bias and Democrats should avoid the company.

What this demonstrates is just how far the Left will go to shut down the verbalization of opinions that differ with their own. They want people to see their way is the only way and in my view, they are no different than the people the criticize on the Right. It is driven by the Netroots, MoveOn.Org crowd because they think they are always right, on everything. They are the flip side to the neo-con crowd. They are driven by partisanship and attract gullible people that rarely have the ability to think outside of the official stances put forth by their leaders.

If Edwards and those that agree with him had their way, I am confident they would love nothing more than to pull a Hugo Chavez and shut down FOX News altogether. But in a free society, it is the market that dictates who stays on and who doesn't. Like it or not, FOX still pulls in more ratings (on average) than both MSNBC and CNN combined. Not all of FOX's viewers are radical right wingers, not all sit in approval of everything that George Bush does and says. With Bush's approval rating so low, if this were the case, FOX would be low on the ratings chart.

And many times, it's not just FOX that is the object of their scorn. All one has to do is remember the debate about Michael Moore's movie Sicko, on Wolf Blitzer's show, recently.

You see, most people clearly understand that Wolf has been as critical of the Administration and Republican ideology as anyone in the news business, by virtue of the guests he interviews. In short, conservatives are not inclined to watch his show, due to this very fact. But when a doctor that has a medical degree. a license, and has worked in the field for many years, dared to criticize the movie, Moore ran into this long filibusterous rant and diatribe, calling into question the doctor's credentials. Instead of intelligently debating the issues the doctor brought up, he was content to show his blatant ignorance and proceed into the world of ad hominem.

Have you ever had some idiot with no formal training or education of any kind, try to tell you about your job? That's what this equates to.

Now, we have Edwards leading this charge against a news network that he doesn't like, because they do not give him a blank check to say the things he likes to say without some scrutiny. He, like many that idolize him, do not want free-thinking to prevail among the masses. Instead, they want robots that obey commands from the command center. In short, they do not like dissent from their narrow ways of thinking and will seek retribution anytime someone doesn't toe their line. Case in point, the Dems succumbing to pressure not to appear in a FOX sponsored debate.

Between Obama putting his foot in his mouth, spewing naive rhetoric, and Edwards on some self-righteous crusade making himself look like the number one hypocrite, the Democrats have very little to offer except Hillary (in terms of electability). And in terms of what they've shown us in the early going, she should beat both of them in the primaries, if they want to have any chance at all in the general election. This is quite possibly one reason she is now pulling away in the polls.

So bottom line, if I were her, I wouldn't give any of it back. By doing so, she risks losing a lot of credibility with independent moderates that decide elections.